Johannesburg - South Africa’s gender gap is closing and the country has moved up two places to 15 out of 144 countries, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2016 by the World Economic Forum (WEF), published on Tuesday.
The WEF said South Africa’s own gender gap was getting smaller and had closed by 76 percent.
The global leaders are Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. In sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa came fourth behind Rwanda which moves one place ahead of Ireland, Burundi and Namibia
Education
The report found that South Africa had closed almost all of its education gender gap, except for literacy, and all of its health and survival gaps.
Most improvements were in South Africa’s economic pillar, where the country ranked 63 from 72 last year - specifically in closing gaps in participation in the labour force and estimated earned income. However, the country falls back when it comes to wage equality.
The report is an annual benchmarking exercise that measures progress towards parity between men and women in four areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity, and political empowerment.
Four sub-Saharan African nations made it into the top 20, more than any other region except western Europe.
The WEF said: “The region has closed nearly 68 percent of its gender gap. However, data suggest that it will take 60 years for economic parity to be achieved - far less than other more developed regions of the world. But high labour force participation for women tends to be in low-skilled roles in the region, a factor that will need to be addressed to ensure that economic parity leads to growth and inclusion.”
The report found global progress towards economic parity had slowed dramatically to 59 percent. It said behind this decline were factors such as salary, with women around the world on average earning just over half of what men earn despite working long hours, taking paid and unpaid work into account.
Lagging labour
The WEF said another persistent challenge was stagnant labour force participation, with the global average for women standing at 54 percent compared with 81 percent for men.
“The number of women in senior positions also remains stubbornly low, with only four countries in the world having equal numbers of male and female legislators, senior officials and managers, despite the fact that 95 countries now have as many, if not more, women educated at university.”
The WEF said last year that the economic gap could be closed by 2133.
Business Report