The Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time. The index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, education, health and political criteria (see Figure 1), and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups. The rankings are designed to create global awareness of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps.

This year’s 14th edition continues to build on the well-established methodology. While it would be important to measure differences in opportunities and conditions across the full spectrum of gender identities, data availability limits the possibility to convert these aspirations into statistical measurement. As such, the index and the analysis remain focused on benchmarking progress on disparities between women and men across the four dimensions mentioned above. 

This chapter presents the 2020 rankings, trends in both overall scores and subindex scores, as well as performances across regions. Chapter 2 presents the results of the analysis based on new data showing gender gaps in emerging jobs, conducted in collaboration with LinkedIn.

Country Coverage, 2020

Every year, in an effort to draw a complete picture of the global gender gap, we aim to cover as many countries as possible, within data availability constraints. To be included, a country must have data available for a minimum of 12 indicators out of the 14 that compose the index. In this edition, we have been able further increase the number of countries included in the ranking and the analysis, reaching 153 countries. Two countries (Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu) enter the index for the first time ever, while Trinidad and Tobago and Zambia are re-instated. Of the 153 countries, 107 have consistently been included in the index every year since the first edition, published in 2006. 

The Global Gender Gap Report groups countries into eight broad geographical groupings: East Asia and the Pacific; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; Middle East and North Africa; North America; South Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; and Western Europe. The classification of countries according to these categories is detailed in Appendix A.