Women will become equal to men in terms of economic rights in more than two and a half centuries, and in Croatia, the gender gap is the biggest in political power despite equality in education, shows a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as carried recently by the German news agency dpa.
Gender equality will be achieved only in about 100 years, the WEF says in its latest annual report, which measures the gap in the social status of women and men in the areas of the economy, education, health and political power.
Efforts to achieve gender equality have been considerably intensified in comparison to 2018, primarily owing to the greater political representation of women, the WEF says but warns that the political arena is the place where differences continue to be the biggest, with 95 more years needed for women to become equal to men.
The gap has been reduced the most in education, where women will have to wait for 12 more years to become equal to men. Of the 153 countries covered by the survey, full gender equality in education has been achieved in 40.
Women’s participation in the labour market is stagnating and financial inequality has deepened, the reason being a worsening of the situation in emerging and developing economies that is greater than progress in OECD members-countries.
Participation of women in the economy and their opportunities in that area are the biggest source of concern, the WEF notes.
The economy is the only area where progress has turned into regression, the WEF says, noting that women will need as many as 257 years to become equal to men.
The reason for this is the greater share of women in jobs that are being automated. There are also not enough women in positions marked by significant salary growth, and they are also faced with the lasting problem of insufficient care infrastructure and access to capital.
The biggest challenge in the future could be the insufficient representation of women in new jobs, the authors of the WEF report say, noting that women account for only 12% of workers in the cloud computing sector.
Their share in data processing and artificial intelligence is 15% and 26% respectively.
Iceland closest to gender equality
For the eleventh consecutive year, Iceland ranks first among the 153 countries, with the value of gender equality index at 0.887 points. The value of one point signals full gender equality. Norway is second and Finland is third, having switched places with Sweden, this year’s fourth-ranked country.
Nicaragua is fifth, New Zealand sixth, and Ireland seventh. Among the ten countries where the gender gap is the smallest are also Spain (8th), Rwanda (9th) and Germany (10th).
Croatia: Equality in education, gap in political power
Croatia ranks 60th in this year’s report, with the total value of its gender equality index at 0.72 points. In last year’s report, it ranked 59th among 149 countries and the gender equality index at 0.712 points.
The gender gap is the biggest in the category ‘political power’, where the gender equality index is at a mere 0.232 points. The situation is nevertheless better when compared to last year when the index stood at 0.191 points.
Women are equal to men in education, and in the life expectancy category, they are better than men, with the gender equality index standing at 1.060 points.
The gender gap has grown the most in terms of pay, expressed in the value of the gender equality index of 0.678 points. In last year’s report, the value of the index was 0.727.
