Index: Estonia Excels in Educational Attainment for Women but Lags in Empowerment
The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2014, published today, measured gender equality among 142 countries. Estonia is placed 62nd overall, an all time low for the country.
The Global Gender Gap Index ranks 142 countries on the gap between women and men on health, education, economic and political indicators. Index scores can be interpreted as the percentage of the gap that has been closed between women and men, and allow countries to compare their current performance relative to their past performance. The rankings also allow for comparisons between countries.
According to the report the gender gap for economic participation and opportunity now stands at 60 percent worldwide. Estonia ranks 56th in this field but only 95th in terms of wage equality for similar work.
The global gap is narrowest, at 96 percent, in terms of health and survival with 35 countries having closed the gap entirely. Estonia is placed 37th.
Estonia has, however, closed the gap in educational attainment.
The gap for political empowerment, on the other hand, lags significantly behind. The overall score for this indicator is well below the sample average. Globally there are now 26 percent more female parliamentarians and 50 percent more female ministers than nine years ago. In Estonia, however, the numbers have stayed roughly the same. There are only 20 women in the 101-strong parliament.
Nordic countries remain the most gender-equal counties in the world. Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark occupy the five top positions of the rankings. The top ten also include countries like Nicaragua, Rwanda and the Philippines. Of the closer neighbors, Latvia is ranked 15th, Lithuania 44th and Russia 75th. The least gender-equal counties are Chad, Pakistan and Yemen.
This year's report is ninth in succession. The first report was published in 2006, when Estonia ranked 29th out of 115 countries. It received its highest overall score in 2009. The nine-year trend shows very little improvement.