This Country Profiles section presents a two-page profile for each of the 153 countries covered by this report.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 is complemented by a digital portal, which provides detailed Country Profiles of all countries featured in the index as well as a Data Explorer tool enabling the reader to explore detailed index results, rankings and comparisons by country, region, indicator and subindex. The Global Gender Gap Data Explorer can be found here, and an Excel spreadsheet containing this year’s index results may also be downloaded from the report website.

Country Selection

To monitor the condition of women across the widest possible range of countries, the index for a country is only computed when recent data are available for at least 12 of the 14 indicators composing the index. The obsolescence varies by indicator, yet, while most datapoints refer to the past two years, in few cases 10-year-old data points are used for the calculation of the index.

Country Profiles

To facilitate the reader, we have divided the country profile into three sections, and we describe each section as follows:

The first section ➊ presents each country’s overall Global Gender Gap Index 2020 rank out of the 153 reviewed countries and its progress, represented on a 0-to-1 scale, towards closing the gender gap and achieving full gender parity (benchmark score of 1).1 The radar chart on the top left-hand side of each Country Profile gives an overview of the country’s scores for each of the four subindexes relative to the ideal outcome of full gender parity (score 1) and the global average score of all countries in the Index weighted by population across all 153 countries.

The second section ➋ of each Country Profile provides an overview of each country’s ranks and scores on the four subindexes of the Global Gender Gap Index, as well as on the individual indicators that compose each subindex. For each of the indicators, column one displays the country’s rank; column two displays the country’s score; column three displays the population-weighted sample average (out of 153 countries); column four displays the female value; column five displays the male value; and, finally, column six displays the female-to-male ratio. Although full-precision values have been used for calculating ratios and scores, rounded values to one decimal are displayed to facilitate reading. The “n/a” symbol indicates where data is not available, and the symbol “-“ indicates where the statistic cannot be computed. Country scores are highlighted by a colour scale—ranging in 20% intervals from light blue (0.0–0.2; worst) to dark blue (0.8–1.0; best)—to help the reader visually interpret the index results. To calculate the index, all ratios were truncated at the parity benchmark of 1 and thus the highest score possible is 1—except for the sex ratio at birth (0.944) and the healthy life expectancy (1.06) indicators.

The bar charts visually display the magnitude of female-to-male ratio imbalances for each of the 14 indicators, allowing the reader to see clearly when the female-to-male ratio is above or below the gender parity benchmark. Values above 1 (the parity benchmark) favour women and values below 1 favour men. Please note that the parity benchmark is 1 for all indicators except sex ratio at birth (0.944) and healthy life expectancy (1.06). Therefore, the parity benchmark of 1 in the bar charts for these two indicators is not strictly accurate. In the few cases where the ratio exceeds the scale of the bar chart (which ends at 2), the reader should refer to the number under the “female-to-male ratio” column for the actual value.

The third section ➌ of a Country Profile includes contextual indicators, which are not incorporated into the calculation of the index but provide relevant information about gender parity on many different aspects. These indicators are displayed separately because data is available for only few countries or are not updated regularly. They are in turn organized into seven thematic groups: a) General indicators; b) Work participation and leadership; c) Access to finance; d) Civil and political freedom; e) Family and care; f) Education and skills; g) Health. The full definitions of all indicators are provided in Appendix B.

Data Explorer Online Features

A number of additional features may be accessed in the online Data Explorer (available here). The reader has the possibility to switch between Country Profiles and interactive Index rankings in a tile, bar chart or world map format by clicking on the menu option at the top-left corner of the page ➍. There is also the possibility to directly compare two countries side-by-side by clicking on the menu option in the top-right corner of the page ➎. Finally, the reader may directly access a shortcut to the rankings for a specific indicator by clicking on the blue Go to Explorer button in the dialogue field in the Country Score Card section ➏.

Interactive Ranking Tables

By clicking on the menu button at the top-right corner of the Data Explorer ➐, the interactive rankings may be switched between a tile view, which visualizes countries’ overall performance on each subindex for context; a bar-chart view, which depicts a country’s performance for the selected indicator relative to other countries; and a world-map view, which allows the reader to explore geographical trends and patterns. In the map view, countries are highlighted by an extended colour scale to enhance contrast and readability—ranging in 20% intervals from dark grey (0.0–0.2, worst) to dark blue (0.8–1.0, best).

In addition, the reader has the possibility to: switch between selected indicators, narrow selection to a specific region or go directly to the results for a specific country of interest through the menu strip at the top of the Data Explorer ➑.

Country Comparison

The Country Comparison Tool ➒ can be accessed through the menu option at the top-right corner of the Country Profile view. It enables a side-by-side view of indicators for the selected comparison country relative to the original country selected in the Country Profile view of the Data Explorer. The reader may return to the original view by clicking on the Back-to-Country menu option at the top-left corner of the page or may continue exploring the data by clicking through to the other views of the Data Explorer.