Global Gender Gap Report 2024

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Yann Zopf: Welcome to the session about the state of global gender parity. My name is Yann Zopf and the head of media to the World Economic Forum, where we have launched today our Global Gender Gap Report 2024. It's the 18th edition of this report that benchmarks gender based gaps in economic participation, education, health and survival and political environment. And it monitors advances in closing these gaps over time.

At the current progress, it will take 134 years to close the Global Gender Gap, which strategies, actions can be implemented to recover momentum and accelerate gender parity outcomes? What is the role for government and business leaders?

We will discuss this with our esteemed panel, Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum, Minister Laguesma, secretary of labour and employment in the Philippines and Sue Duke, head of global public policy at LinkedIn, who's joining us remotely. Welcome. Thank you for joining this panel discussion.

I will start with you Saadia and simple question to start with. What are the key findings for this year?

Saadia Zahidi: Well, first, let me thank the excellent team at the Centre for the New Economy and Society that every year diligently puts all of this data together to help us continue to monitor and benchmark gender gaps around the world. In particular, my colleagues, Celia Bollard [unconfirmed] and Kim Piaget and Kusum Kali Pal who have been leading much of this effort.

Now, you said already, 134 years – let me put it another way. We are five generations away from gender parity. That's what the results of this year's report show and this is pretty much on track with what was happening last year. So, we are seeing, overall, a slowdown in progress. There is still progress but it is slower than it has been in the past. The pandemic created quite a major dent in that progress a few years ago. And since then, while there has been a recovery, we have been sent off that original trajectory.

Maybe a second point too raises, we're covering again about 146 countries this year. The number one country in the world, Iceland, is the 15th year in a row that it is at number one and it is the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap. The rest of the top 10 is again dominated by a lot of European economies but there are other countries also from other parts of the world.

And maybe the third element, there are these four dimensions of the index. When it comes to health and education, the world as a whole has made a lot of progress and regardless of whether it's high-income, middle-income or lower-income countries, in most parts of the world, education and health gender gaps have begun to be closed or have in some cases even been reversed.

But when it comes to economic participation and when it comes to political empowerment, that is where there is quite a long way to go. And this year shows more than ever, that some of the structural changes that are happening in labour markets give a major opportunity to accelerate that progress. But at the moment, we are not necessarily seeing it. And I know that some of Sue's data will tell us a bit about what's happening on that front.

And secondly, the other opportunity is nearly 3 billion people are going to some form of local or national elections this year and next year, there's an opportunity to make a leap forward when it comes to women's participation, in political empowerment. So those are some of the highlights and I'll be happy to share more later on in our discussion.

Yann Zopf: Of course, we'll come back to you what are some more points as you mentioned. Let's turn to Sue Duke from LinkedIn. So the data shows that progress to gender parity is stalling.

What does the LinkedIn data tell you, Sue?

Sue Duke: Yeah, it's great to be here. With a global platform of over a billion members at LinkedIn, we can see in real time and in real detail how both men and women's careers are playing out, we can shine a light on areas where inequities are emerging and identify actions we need to take to drive more equitable outcomes.

And what our data shows is that women are paying a heavy price for the systemic balances that continue to persist in our labour markets. We see that women's careers have been more heavily impacted by the global economic slowdown that has taken hold across most of the world over the past two years. And we're losing ground of getting women into those senior leadership roles. We have seen some gains in female leadership during the hiring frenzy that was a real feature of the pandemic in 2020, 2021, 2022.

But even then, even when times were really, really good, those gains were small. They were incremental; we're talking annual increases of 0.4, 0.3% that kind of range. And then, when times got tough, we see that incremental progress stalls and in some cases, even goes backwards. The share of women being hired into senior leadership roles globally fell 2023 and it continues to fall into 2024.

And overall that means that when we look back over the past six years, female representation in senior leadership roles has increased less than 1%. So as Saadia said just now more generally we have a lot of work to do to address those structural systemic inequities that are holding women back and make sure that when next year's report comes out, not only is that representation of women in those numbers going in a different direction but they're going up in a sustained and accelerated while way as well.

Yann Zopf: Thank you, Sue.

Minister, what are the opportunities that you have seen in your country but also the challenges that you think you still have to overcome?

Bienvenido Laguesma: Let me first convey my appreciation to the World Economic Forum for the support, unity and coincidentally, this is our 126th Independence Day, today, so we look forward that we can be free from the so-called thesis of gender inequality.

There are a number of challenges, though; one would always be we always look at our limited access to education, low level of involvement and then what is actually very, in a sense, to us, a very strong challenge would be the so-called historical and cultural stereotyping of women. They are actually for child rearing and housekeeping.

So we'd like to really look at our respect for gender equality that's fully embedded in our constitution, our fundamental law of the land, even the labour code of the Philippines and more importantly, we have a magna carta for women that actually espouses equality, access to education and sorts of activities that would actually provide political empowerment and economic empowerment to women. And all actually all. Both men and women and all and that has to be actually taken care of by the government.

Yann Zopf: Thank you, Minister.

Saadia, I don't know, maybe you want to go a little bit more into detail what the regions that have, you know, made the most progress and so on. But then, also maybe let's look as Minister already started to do, look at what are the policies that are needed to improve this.

Saadia Zahidi: So a couple of things. A hundred and thirty four years is what we say for the aggregated global gender gap looking across the four dimensions but if we break this down, the pace of progress is actually quite different across those different areas.

So for example, at the current rate of change, it may take only 20 years to fully close the education gender gap, and that's very good news. There are a few parts of the world still remaining where that education gender gap exists that needs to be closed and there does seem to be some progress taking place.

When it comes to the health gap, it's a little bit ill-defined because there hasn't been actually that much progress. When it comes to economic participation. It could take another 152 years so that is definitely where there is a slowdown happening for various reasons.

And in particular, now with birth growth hasn't been as high in the last couple of years. And then when it comes to political empowerment 169 years because we're only at about 22% of that gender gap having been closed, so the area that needs the most progress overall. So that's what those four dimensions look like.

And then when we look across different regions, at the current rate of change, again, if things continue the way they have been, Latin America is actually poised to make a lot of progress and to probably get to parity faster, faster even than Europe, which had previously been the leader given the current rates of change.

So I think there is something to be looked at there when progress becomes consistent, when it becomes steady when it continues over the nearly two decades that we have been monitoring this data. There is something to look to in terms of best practices in some of those countries in those different regions.

Maybe a third element is the report really highlights this segregation that exists both in a vertical level. So inside organizations, when you look at entry-level positions, versus if you look at C-suite positions. There is definitely a series of gender gaps and there's a sort of a drop to the top and Sue will tell you more about that. And then there's another element which is more of the horizontal segregation across different sectors.

So some sectors like education or healthcare may be very large employers of women but then when it comes to manufacturing or technology, that is where there are to begin with fewer women that are going into those sectors. So overall that needs to be looked at in quite specialized ways. And I think that's where this data can help and I'll certainly talk about policy later.

A very similar kind of segregation also exists when it comes to political empowerment. So, for example, when it comes to local government, there are about 35%. Women, when it comes to parliaments, we're at an all-time global high but that's only 33% When it comes to parliamentary positions. Then when it comes to ministerial positions, about 24.5% and then when it comes to the head of state level, around the world, over the last 50 years, last half a century, less than 15% of those positions have been occupied by women.

So, very similar in some ways to what's happening in the economic picture. When it comes to political empowerment a long way to go. And in both these areas. It's so critical that very targeted actions are taken, in addition to the big sweeping structural reforms around, for example, something like care.

The care burden, to your point Minister, tends to still fall very much on women, whether it's childcare or eldercare. And care is certainly one of those things that where governments invest, it helps with creating more gender equality but it also helps with just creating a lot more jobs and so it's a win-win situation.

Yann Zopf: Thank you. You mentioned the drop at the top.

Sue, can you say more to that?

Sue Duke: eah, happy to Yann and Saadia is spot on. When you look at female representation by seniority globally, what jumps out at you so clearly is that the higher up you go, the bigger the gender gap gets. So, big picture on LinkedIn, we look at our global membership at entry level.

Almost half of workers are women. About 46%. When you get to management level, just over a third are women about 35% there and then, by the time we get to the C-suite, we're down to a quarter. So we're going from a half, to a third, to a quarter. And that tells you immediately that there are these persistent genomic structural barriers facing women as they move through their careers.

It's true as, Saadia said, that some industries do better than others. Typically, what we see is that if an industry has higher female representation at that entry-level, we see a less steep drop at those senior levels. So, as you said, consumer services, education, government, these are all industries that have a higher ratio of women in the C-suite compared to those entry-level roles. But to be clear, even in those sectors, we have work to do.

Education is a great example. Women are outnumbering men in education at those junior levels; typically, about 60% of those roles are held by women but they are still being seriously outnumbered in the C-suite. There are only about 36% of those C-suite senior roles are held by women.

So the stark stark reality is that today, we do not have a single sector and we do not have a single country that has reached gender parity in leadership. And that's why we have to get to grips with some of these systemic barriers that are facing women as Saadia set out, that disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities that very often fall to women. We have to get to grips with that.

The lack of availability of flexible working, particularly post pandemic and this persistent unconscious bias that we see manifest in workplaces. We have to get to grips with all of those, if we're going to change the reality that we see today.

Yann Zopf: And Sue, you mentioned sectors industries. One very important industry and sector these days, obviously is tech. And there's a lot of discussion around AI and the number of AI engineering has doubled since 2016.

Is that an opportunity? Is that a challenge? Can there be something done in order to move that into the right direction?

Sue Duke: Yes.

Yann Zopf: Do you also you want to come in then.

Sue Duke: Oh, sorry.

Yann Zopf: No, no, please. Please go first, yeah.

Sue Duke: Yeah, and I know Saadia mentioned that at the top of the show and it's true, there's a big opportunity here, we can already see green shoots for women on gender equity. No question like you said, yeah, young, generative AI looks at two very significant changes in the workplace and significantly change the skill sets that we need to be successful in the workplace.

All data at LinkedIn suggests that the skill sets required for jobs globally could change by as much as 68% by 2030 and a lot of that change will be driven by soft interpersonal skills, they're gonna get more and more important skills like leadership, communication, collaboration and these are skills that women excel at.

Today on LinkedIn, women have a 28% higher share of those soft skills than men. Beyond those soft skills that we know are going to be so critical in this AI-driven workplace. Women are also pushing ahead and acquiring those technical AI skills that we also know will be in very high demand. As you said Yann, the concentration of women in AI engineering has more than doubled since 2016. That's increasing at a faster rate than men and that continues to improve representation.

Similarly, on general AI talent beyond engineering, we're going in the right direction. There, the share of of AI talent who are women has increased from just under 25% in 2016. We're just under 27% now.

So those trends are going in the right direction but as Saadia set out very clearly, in order to build on this momentum in order to ensure that women are in the right spot to take advantage of the opportunities that generative AI presents, we need to make sure that we can address these systemic barriers.

That we take those targeted interventions that Saadia mentioned. That we empower companies to ensure that they're focusing on how they hire and how they develop talent. So that there, we always have a gender lens on ensuring that women can avail of those opportunities.

Saadia Zahidi: Let me just add a little bit more to that. So, so critical that there is a stronger focus broadly on STEM but in particular on this area around artificial intelligence and for a couple of reasons. One, I think the set of jobs that are being the most disrupted when it comes to artificial intelligence and other tech-related disruptions, they tend to be very female-dominated professions, whether it's in customer service or executive assistants or data entry. These tend to be roles that occupy and have provided for many years, good middle-class jobs to a lot of women.

And then there's the set of roles that are going to be growing, whether it's AI engineers and a number of others that are in associated fields, where the overall percentages, I mean, yes, the trend is in the right direction but the overall numbers are quite low.

So there has to be a focus on more targeted reskilling and upskilling of women that are being disrupted in certain roles due to technology. And then there has to be a focus on getting more a much larger pipeline of younger women going into some of those STEM dominant fields, as well as ensuring that then those organisations that provide employment for those women are providing more gender-balanced workforce workforces and then not just focusing on the entry-level but actually focusing also on retention and promotion.

All of that together can then help. And of course, some of these fields that we're talking about, they have an outsized impact on the rest of the economy, underbalanced creativity and innovation and teams working on artificial intelligence that we could end up with unexpected consequences when it comes to bias that may get built in. So really important all around that there's much more focus on getting gender parity in STEM fields.

Yann Zopf: Thank you Saadia. Minister, yes.

Bienvenido Laguesma: Juust on this item, AI, before I forget. We, the Philippines is touted, pleased to be number one in the Southeast Asia region in terms of gender parity and three vis-a-vis Asia Pacific region and the less we are not happy because we we have some slippage this year. This is due to a slippage in the political empowerment and participation index.

Having said that, we believe that technological advancement, AI is, in particular, present both positive and negative impacts on women workers. We look at positive impacts. Technology generally creates broader opportunities for economic participation of women and it will create new jobs with higher qualification standards and better remuneration and also telecommuting enables more women to have quality of work in life, family life, as well as they're able to address some responsibilities.

But on the other hand, we see also some threats, job losses and displacement brought about by introduction of new technology. Well, this could present disproportionate impact on women in certain industries and services, in particular those traditionally known to employ more women than men. For example, in the BPO sector, voice and bathroom operations are regularly performed by workers are being replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.

So, these are challenges that we have to address and be able to cope up so that we can really reach the target, whether it's what 134 years, 20 years or 160 years, whatever the years it will take, I think there should be sustained efforts toward gender parity.

Yann Zopf: Thank you, Minister. I wanted to ask you also, do you have any specific regulations that you have introduced and where you think that has moved the needle in the right direction? And do you think, could you replicate it maybe, in other countries, other regions?

Bienvenido Laguesma: Well, in the first place, as I mentioned, gender equality has been part and parcel of our constitution. It is also embedded in our labour code of the Philippines and is a very specific legislation, is the magna carta for women and other than that, there are several pieces of legislation after.

One is violence against women is punishable by law. We always make sure that we implement. I believe that if we would like to really make sure sustained efforts can be there. We should have efficient and effective implementation of laws that actually prevents or prohibits gender inequality.

So, we have lots of laws but I think the secret or the how, to put it mildly, we should really have a strict, efficient implementation of these laws, so that we can really go towards the objective of having gender parity all over the world.

Yann Zopf: Thank you, Minister. The World Economic Forum is about private, private public collaboration. We talk a little bit about you know, how can these collaborations come in and also help to address these issues and challenges that still exist?

Saadia Zahidi: So at the Forum, we have, of course, been tracking how things are headed towards gender parity, but we have also been working with countries around the world to try to help put in place, work with them, learn with them. What are the best practices for closing gender gaps?

With about 15 countries at the moment, we've been working around the world on setting up gender parity, accelerators. These are public-private collaboration mechanisms at a national level. And of course, with each country, there are various contexts, there are various priorities.

We work with those countries in bringing the government and the private sector together. In particular, focusing on some of the largest employers but even more importantly, deriving from that, what might sort of some of the lighthouses, the best practice examples look like? And trying to understand how that could help with more of a global playbook.

Where is it that some specific experiments that have been taking place? Could they be transferable to other parts of the world and we do that through the global learning network of the various gender parity, accelerators?

We've also set up accelerators around jobs and skills and education and of course, all of that together is what can help with ensuring that people are able to deliver to their full human potential and maximize their opportunities. There is a new initiative that we will be kicking off that we just started discussing at our annual meeting in Davos and that is a global gender parity sprint.

So, if you combine this data, combine the public-private collaboration efforts at a country level, combine that with a lot of the business commitments with some of the largest global employers in the world, also ensuring that they are putting forward parity not just in their own workforce but throughout their supply chains. If we combine those efforts, it should certainly be possible to move a lot faster than five generations to gender parity.

And that's where we are setting up the global gender parity sprint with the idea – to make a massive acceleration by 2030. So five years from now, we're looking at very different results.

Yann Zopf: Thank you. Well, we talked about, we mentioned, Sue, the private sector. You represent the private sector here. What do you think the private sector brings to the table in that effort of collaboration?

Sue Duke: I think there is a huge role here for the private sector to help contribute to moving these numbers forward and accelerating this progress that we all need to make.

At LinkedIn, a huge part of the work that we do is to work directly with organizations like the World Economic Forum, on governments and companies and workers around the world to leverage these insights not only to understand where are we, what progress are we making but also to identify what are the targeted interventions that Saadia spoke about, that we need to make in order to really make the strides forward and to get to parity much, much more quickly than we're currently projected to make.

So I'll give you two examples of that. What the data very clearly points to is that there are two areas that companies need to get to grips with to really move the needle on gender parity. The first is around internal promotions and the second is at the pre-manager level. So our data shows very clearly that men are 33% more likely to get an internal promotion compared to women. And we also see that in the movement from the pre-individual contributor level to manager level, we see an almost 10% drop off for women versus men.

Empowering organizations with that data, which directs them to take targeted interventions both when they're hiring internally and it when they're moving talent from that individual contributor level to leadership level, make sure that the efforts that they're making are really going to move the needle and we're fully committed our vision at LinkedIn is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

So we are all in on empowering governments on empowering companies and empowering workers themselves to make this progress to ensure that it is a fair and equitable world and also a stronger economy as the data and today's report shows so clearly.

Yann Zopf: Thank you, Sue. Thank you to all panellists. Thank you for sharing these insights today.

So there are notable positive developments but also still a lot of ongoing challenges as we discussed and the good news is that there are ways for businesses, governments and stakeholders to accelerate gender parity.

To learn more about this report, you can visit our website on weforum.org where you can find all the details, all the rankings in detail. Thank you for watching us today. Goodbye