7 Charts That Explain The Global Gender Gap In 2014

The World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Index measures the range of inequalities between the sexes and tracks improvements over time. No single data point can capture the complete picture, so the Index looks at the gaps between women and men across health, education, economy and politics.

1. How wide is the Global Gender Gap? The darker the blue, the greater the equality between men and women.

The Global Gender Gap Index 2014 / Via reports.weforum.org

2. As a region, North America is closest to equality

Source: Global Gender Gap Index 2014 / Via reports.weforum.org

North America holds the top spot. Europe and Central Asia comes next with a wide spread among its 46 countries. Middle East and North Africa has the most work to do, where the highest-scoring country ranks lower than the regional averages for the other five regions.

3. The economic participation and opportunity gap: 82% closed in North America, 42% in Middle East and North Africa

Global Gender Gap Index 2014 / Via reports.weforum.org

North America is 82% of the way towards closing its economic gender gap, and is followed by Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific and Middle East and North Africa are lagging, with 42% of the economic gap closed.

4. 25 countries have closed the education gap between women and men

Global Gender Gap Index

There are 22 countries where women still have less than 90% of the education outcomes that men have. Again, North America is in the lead, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia with over 99% of the gender gap closed. The lowest average comes from Sub-Saharan Africa at 82%.

5. The health and survival gap is closing worldwide

Global Gender Gap Index 2014

35 countries have closed the gap in Health and Survival.

6. The gender gap in political empowerment remains wide open, across the world

Global Gender Gap Index / Via reports.weforum.org

No country has closed the political empowerment gap between women and men. The highest-ranking region on this subindex is Asia and the Pacific with 23% of its political empowerment gap closed, followed by Europe and Central Asia (21%), Latin America (21%) and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa (20%), North America (19%) and Middle East and North Africa (8%).

7. The gender gap is closing, but don't hold your breath

Global Gender Gap Index 2014

Since the index began in 2006, Latin America is the region with the largest absolute change, narrowing the overall gender gap by 4.18%, followed by North America

(4.06%), Middle East and North Africa (3.08%), Sub-Saharan Africa (3.06% ) and Europe and Central Asia (3.06%). In Asia and the Pacific the gap has widened by 3.15%.

At current rates of it will take 81 years before women worldwide have equality in the workplace.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2014

World Economic Forum / Via youtube.com

The Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum, provides a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities around the world.