Gender equality at work more than 80 years off, new report claims

If you’re waiting for gender equality in the workplace, be prepared to wait a long time. While women are rapidly closing the gender gap with men in areas like health and education, inequality at work is not expected to be erased until 2095, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) Tuesday. The organisation, which each year gathers the global elite in the plush Swiss ski resort of Davos, said the worldwide gender gap in the workplace had barely narrowed in the past nine years.

Based on this trajectory, with all else remaining equal, it will take 81 years for the world to close this gap completely.

World Economic Forum statement

Since 2006, when the WEF first began issuing its annual Global Gender Gap Reports, women have seen their access to economic participation and opportunity inch up to 60 percent of that of men’s, from 56 percent. The world would be better served to speed up the process, according to WEF founder and chief Klaus Schwab. The report, which covered 142 countries, looked at how nations distribute access to healthcare, education, political participation and resources and opportunities between women and men.

Achieving gender equality is obviously necessary for economic reasons. Only those economies who have full access to all their talent will remain competitive and will prosper.

WEF founder and chief Klaus Schwab

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