Insight Report The Global Gender Gap Report 2011 - World Economic Forum

Insight Report

The Global Gender Gap Report 2011

Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum Geneva, Switzerland 2011

The Global Gender Gap Report 2011

Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum

The Global Gender Gap Report 2011 is published by the World Economic Forum. The Global Gender Gap Index 2011 is the result of collaboration with faculty at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

Professor Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman

B?rge Brende Managing Director

Saadia Zahidi Senior Director and Head of Constituents

Yasmina Bekhouche Senior Project Associate, Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme

Silvia Magnoni Community Manager, Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme

Marc Cu?nod Team Coordinator and Research Associate, Constituents

AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Professor Ricardo Hausmann Director, Center for International Development

AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Professor Laura D. Tyson S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management

Thank you to Hope Steele for her superb copyediting work and Neil Weinberg for his excellent interior graphic design and layout.

We are very grateful to Kamal Kamaoui and the World Economic Forum's Publications team for their invaluable collaboration on the production of this Report.

The terms country and nation as used in this report do not in all cases refer to a territorial entity that is a state as understood by international law and practice. The term covers well-defined, geographically self-contained economic areas that may not be states but for which statistical data are maintained on a separate and independent basis.

World Economic Forum 91-93 route de la Capite CH-1223 Cologny/Geneva Switzerland Tel.: +41 (0)22 869 1212 Fax: +41 (0)22 786 2744 E-mail: contact@

? 2011 World Economic Forum All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.

ISBN 92-95044-62-2 ISBN 978-92-95044-62-3

Contents

Preface ..........................................................................................................v

by Klaus Schwab and Saadia Zahidi

PART 1: MEASURING THE GLOBAL GENDER GAP

1

The Global Gender Gap Index 2011 .....................................5

by Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley Yasmina Bekhouche, World Economic Forum Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum

Appendix A: Tracking the Gender Gap over Time...........................35

Appendix B: Regional and Income Group Classifications, 2011 ......................................................................39

Appendix C: Spread of Minimum and Maximum Values by Indicator, 2011..............................................................41

Appendix D: Rankings by Indicator, 2011 ..........................................42

Appendix E: Policy Frameworks for Gender Equality.....................56

PART 2: COUNTRY PROFILES

79

List of Countries.....................................................................81

User's Guide: How Country Profiles Work.......................83

by Yasmina Bekhouche, Marc Cu?nod and Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum

Country Profiles .....................................................................88

About the Authors and Project Team............................................... 359 Acknowledgements.............................................................................. 363

Preface

KLAUS SCHWAB, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum SAADIA ZAHIDI, Senior Director, World Economic Forum

Given the complexity of the world today and the economic, demographic, environmental and political transformations we face, we must commit to a new mindset, one that discards old prejudices and inertia and instead commits to new ideas and new solutions. Empowering and educating girls and women and leveraging their talent and leadership fully in the global economy, politics and society are fundamental elements of the new models required to succeed in today's challenging landscape.

The most important determinant of a country's competitiveness is its human talent--the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. Over time, a nation's competitiveness depends significantly on whether and how it utilizes its human resource pool. Furthermore, innovation requires unique ideas, and the best ideas thrive in a diverse environment. Countries and companies will thrive if women are educated and engaged as fundamental pillars of the economy, and diverse leadership is most likely to find innovative solutions to tackle the current economic challenges and to build equitable and sustainable growth. Governments play an important role in creating the right policy framework for improving women's education and economic participation. However, it is also the imperative of companies to create ecosystems where the best talent, both male and female, can flourish.

As the world population surpasses the seven billion mark, we are in the midst of history's most rapid demographic transformations. Countries are in various stages of demographic transition--while some are experiencing a youth bulge, others are rapidly shifting towards an ageing population. Women--in their multiple roles as workers, as caregivers, as mothers and as the majority of the world's older persons--are critical to making this transition a successful one. We must think with a new mindset about issues of family and fertility. We must also take into account the implications of a shrinking working-age population and consider how efficiently the female half of that population is being leveraged. Some of these issues touch upon the core of the social fabric. However, from both a rights perspective and an efficiency viewpoint, it is imperative that we address these topics.

Women have emerged as key civic leaders in the uprising that launched the Arab Spring. Their role must now be recognized by increasing gender equality in the political arena in that region and across the globe. In the world today, approximately 20 women serve as elected heads of state or government. At the ministerial and parliament levels, the global average is less than 20%. A system where women are not represented at the highest levels is both an

unequal and an inefficient system. We must design new measures to ensure that women are represented in political decision-making.

Through the Global Gender Gap Report series, the World Economic Forum has been quantifying the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time. By providing a comprehensive framework for benchmarking global gender gaps, the Report reveals those countries that are role models in dividing their resources equitably between women and men, regardless of the overall level of those resources. The Report is used by numerous universities, schools, researchers, media entities, businesses, governments and individuals as a tool for their work. In 2008, we launched our Global Gender Parity Group and Regional Gender Parity Groups in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. To date, these multi-stakeholder communities of highly influential leaders--50% women and 50% men--from business, politics, academia, media and civil society have jointly identified the biggest gaps in each region, and have collectively committed to strategies to improve and increase the use of female talent. In 2012, based on the work of this Group and to complement the gap analysis in the Report, we will release an online repository of information on practices that can help close economic participation gaps.

We would like to express our deep appreciation to Ricardo Hausmann, Director, Center for International Development, Harvard University and to Laura D. Tyson, Professor of Global Management, University of California, Berkeley, for their invaluable contributions to this Report. We would also like to thank Yasmina Bekhouche for her role in the 2011 Index development and Silvia Magnoni and Marc Cu?nod for their support of this project at the World Economic Forum.

Our research, and the network of influential leaders who work with the World Economic Forum, aim to be at the forefront of driving change in mindset and policy. The Global Gender Gap Index was created with the specific intent of being comparable across time. The 2011 Report aggregates six years of data and provides a snapshot of the situation today as well as the changes over time, revealing a positive trend as the majority of countries continue to make progress on closing the gender gap. It also provides unique new information on the policy frameworks that support women's economic participation. It is our hope that this Report will serve as a call to action to transform the pace of change on an issue that is fundamental to the growth and sustainability of the global economy and society.

Global Gender Gap Report 2011

Measuring the Global Gender Gap v

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