Global Gender Gap Report 2016 shows indignant results
(JA) The Global Gender Gap Report which is published yearly since its first release in 2005, examines the remaining gender inequalities, in four main categories: politics, economy, education and health. This year, 144 countries qualified to be analysed and the main goal of the Global Gender Gap Report is to create awareness of gender inequalities that unfortunately still persist on a global level.
The 11th edition of the report done by the World Economic Forum noted that globally the economic gap even widened and is currently at an all time high since 2008. Experts of the Gender Gap Report estimate that, at current rate, it will take 170 years to finally reach gender equality. Last year, the estimate was 118 years. While the most significant gender gap is in the political domain, experts observed improvements of 9% since 2006.
The overall Index for Global Performance in 2016 lies at 68% and while the Global Health and Survival and the Educational Attainment Index are closed by 96% respectively 95% the results of the Global Economic Participation (59%) and the Political Participation Index (23%) are unacceptable.
Overall, like in previous years, Nordic countries, namely Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden are the best performing countries regarding gender equality. However, only five of the 144 countries examined managed to close 80% or more of their gender gap, suggesting that, universally, significant improvements are required. In the country ranking, the five countries with the most compelling gender inequalities are Chad, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen.
Mind the Gender Gap in Luxembourg
So how did our Grand Duchy perform in the country ranking? 
Luxembourg classified 34th out of 144 with a score of 0.734 (0.00 imparity, 1.00 parity).
In the Economic Participation and Opportunity Index, Luxembourg ranked 27th. However, when analysing the sub-categories of this Index, one can observe that the reason why Luxembourg ranked 27th is because the country ranked first in the ‘Estimated Earned Income’ category, while ranking 77th in the ‘Professional and Technical Workers’ category and even more disappointingly 102nd in the category ‘Legislators, Senior Officials and Managers’! While ranking first in ‘Educational Attainment’, the Grand-Duchy was classified 55th regarding ‘Political Empowerment.’ Consequently, the fight to abolish those persistent issues must continue in the most efficient manner possible.
Sadly, no country in the world can assert to have reached gender equality and thus treat their women right. While there are significant differences between most countries, they all have one thing in common; half of their population continues to be discriminated in one way or another.
And it’s at least this half of the population who urges to speed up – women are not willing to wait patiently for 2186 when – finally – equal opportunities and equality are promised to become reality for their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-gran’daughters.
