Women Now In Senior Leadership In Business And Govt But Remain Largely Underrepresented In Roles That Carry Greatest Influence - WEF
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 (Bernama) -- Women have now reached senior leadership in business and government at levels that were rare in 2006, yet remain largely underrepresented in roles with the greatest economic and political influence, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2026, which was published in Geneva, Switzerland today, twenty years after the World Economic Forum (WEF) first measured the global gender gap, the world is closer to parity than ever, but progress is fragile, with gains reversing in some areas.
"Nearly every economy tracked since 2006 has improved, and the first decade of the index delivered faster gains than the second. Political empowerment has gained the most ground in the last 20 years, up eight percentage points among the economies tracked throughout.
In 2006, there was one woman minister for every 8.1 men; today it is one for every 4.3. In parliaments, the ratio has moved from one woman for every 5.6 men to one for every three or so," the WEF said in the report.
However, it noted that political empowerment is also the dimension showing the clearest signs of reversal. It now scores lower than it did in 2016 and slipped a further 0.4 percentage points in the past year.
"At the very top, the share of economies - in the report’s constant sample of 97 economies – led by a woman head of state peaked at 27 per cent in 2022, the highest in half a century, and has since fallen back to 2016 levels, erasing the gains made in the first part of the decade," said the forum.
The report said Europe reclaimed the top regional position with 75.7 per cent of its gender gap closed, having narrowed it by seven percentage points since 2006. Seven of the global top 10 performers across the index are European, as the region leads the world in political empowerment (37 per cent), where the parity score measured at head-of-state level has tripled since 2006, it added.
Meanwhile, southern Asia ranked seventh at 64.5 per cent and remains the lowest-scoring region in economic participation and opportunity (40.9 per cent). It has recorded the largest educational gain of any region since 2006, up 15 percentage points, with almost all economies now at parity in tertiary enrolment.
Apart from this, women are less represented in artificial intelligence (AI) firms than in comparable non-AI firms at every level, representing, respectively, 36.6 per cent and 44.8 per cent of employees at individual contributor level, and 25.3 per cent to 27.7 per cent of top management, according to LinkedIn data.
Within AI occupations, women are concentrated in data annotation roles, which are often lower-paid AI positions, while making up just 19.3 per cent of AI engineers.
The share of women founders with AI engineering skills has risen from 2.3 per cent in 2019 to 8.7 per cent in the first two quarters of 2026, though men continue to move faster, said the report.
The 20th edition of the report, the longest-standing index of its kind, benchmarks 145 economies across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
Globally, the gender gap now stands at 69.2% closed, where 100% represents full parity, up 0.4 percentage points over the past year. Among the 97 economies tracked since 2006, the gap has closed by 5.2 percentage points to 69.4 per cent, the highest level recorded. Economic participation and opportunity (61.7%) and political empowerment (22.1%) are the dimensions furthest away from parity.
WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi noted that economies at every income level have made progress, so the barrier is not a lack of resources. "Twenty years of data show that gender parity is achievable. Parity is a foundation for growth and competitiveness, but it is not inevitable. To accelerate, governments and employers need to learn from the policies that work and apply them faster. A new economy demands a new approach to talent," she said.
-- BERNAMA