In 2024, gender parity inches slowly forward – the pace of travel is such, however, that full parity remains beyond the reach of another five generations. The journey to parity is longest for the economic and political dimensions of the index, with differing speeds of individual progress threatening to lower overall collective advancement. Despite this, since the index was launched in 2006, most economies have pressed forward. Globally, gender parity in economic and political spheres has improved significantly since the inception of the report, nearly doubling parity overall in senior leadership, ministerial, and parliamentary positions.

Government and business action have been crucial in advancing targets at the national and regional level; only the scale and stability of interventions remains insufficient in the face of current transformations. Economies cannot risk falling behind and throwing millions of women and girls back into times of strife and need. Big lifts in economic gender parity are needed to ensure that women have unfettered access to resources, opportunities and decision-making positions. Governments are called on to expand and strengthen the framework conditions needed for business and civil society to work together in making gender parity an economic imperative – one that fulfills the most basic of needs and inspires the very edges of innovation.

At the World Economic Forum, the Centre for the New Economy and Society engages leading representatives of government, business and international civil society in shaping prosperous, resilient and equitable economies and societies. Since 2012, the Gender Parity Accelerators have worked towards gender parity in economic participation – scaling policies and strategies to improve women’s representation in the workforce and in leadership – as well as pay equity. Accelerators are currently present in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on corporate action, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Lighthouse Programme brings together a cross-industry group of organizations taking action to drive better and faster DEI outcomes through CEO leadership, and knowledge-sharing on initiatives that have achieved significant, quantifiable and sustained impact for underrepresented groups. At the frontier of thought leadership, the Global Future Council on the Future of the Care Economy explores possibilities for a well-functioning care economy, raising the profile of the care economy as an economic and investment priority for leaders worldwide.

This year’s edition of the Global Gender Gap Report continues to track gender gaps in key labour market outcomes and explores new dimensions underlying these gaps. We are grateful to LinkedIn, Coursera and PwC for their collaboration in providing unique data and new measures to offer novel insights into unfolding dynamics. We also thank the members of the Centre for the New Economy and Society Advisory Board for their leadership, the over 190 partners of the Centre, and the Global Future Council on the Future of the Care Economy and Community of Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officers for expert guidance, as well as a network of national ministries of economy, education and labour for their commitment to advancing gender parity.

We would like to express our gratitude to Silja Baller, Kusum Kali Pal, and Kim Piaget for their leadership of this project. We would also like to thank our colleagues Mauricio Baez-Sedeno, Attilio Di Battista, Eoin O’Cathasaigh, Julia Hakspiel, Kateryna Karusnka, Ricky Li, Dorsey Lockhart and Ignacio Moreno for their support.

Parity can come within grasp, but it requires decisive leadership and dedicated resources. At this year’s Annual Meeting in Davos, the Forum launched the Global Gender Parity Sprint, bringing together governments, businesses, international organizations and other stakeholders for a six-year sprint on the road to parity – to mobilize action, exchange insights, foster partnerships and combine forces to accelerate economic gender parity and deliver economic transformation, innovation and growth. Let us harness this pivotal moment to drive investment and innovation to advance equality of opportunity, making a gender equal world a lived reality for all.