11 Worst Countries for Gender Equality

2. Pakistan

Final rank: 144

Economic participation and opportunity: 143

Educational attainment: 135

Health and survival: 125

Political empowerment: 87

Pakistan recorded the best score on political empowerment scale among listed countries. The country’s result in this area is due to the fact that during last five decades Pakistan had a female prime minister who held the position for five years. At the same time, women are underrepresented in country’s bodies – they hold 21 percent of seats in the parliament while there are no female politicians in ministerial positions. In other three areas – health, economy and education – the country performed poorly. With less than third of female working age population participating in the labor force, only 3 percent of women are at leading positions, with wide income gap, the country is third to last on economic empowerment scale. However, Pakistan has enough resources to make significant progress toward eliminating economic disparities since more and more highly educated women are graduating from universities.

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