Ireland among world’s most gender-equal countries

Ireland is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world.

It has closed slightly under 80% of its overall gender gap, coming in at seventh in the world ahead of Spain and Germany. Its position is two better than the last time it was assessed for the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap survey.

It states the country has nearly achieved parity in secondary education (99.6%) and continues to reduce economic participation and opportunity gender gaps.

“The country has been on a constantly positive 29 trend for the past four editions and has now closed 73.2% of this gap,” says the forum.

“The most significant progress has been in the increase in the number of women in senior positions — 36% from 34.3%.

However, the report says wage and income gender gaps are still relatively large, both ranking 56th globally.

Notably, only half of the women who work are employed part-time, and on average an Irish woman tends to spend 2.3 times more than a man on unpaid care and domestic activities.

In the political domain, on the other hand, Ireland is one of a handful of countries that has been led by a woman for long periods of time (21 years in the past 50). Yet this has not coincided to a particularly strong involvement of women in politics. Only 22% of parliamentarians in the lower house, 30% in the upper house, and 26% of ministers are women.

Iceland is the world’s most gender-equal country.