Global gender parity has reached its highest recorded level of 69.2%, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2026, published Wednesday.
The Geneva-based nonprofit cautioned that full parity could still be 120 years away, and that the gains achieved so far remain “fragile.”
The report examined gender parity across workforce participation, education, health and politics in 145 economies around the world.
Women now hold senior leadership positions in government and business at levels that were rare when the index launched in 2006, but the trend at the very top has reversed over the past decade.
The percentage of countries led by women peaked in 2022 and has since fallen back to levels last seen in 2016, representing a notable setback for political representation.
WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi warned that parity, while foundational to growth and competitiveness, 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,” Zahidi said.
Women still hold fewer than one in five CEO positions globally, and only one in 10 ministerial roles held by women is classified as high influence.
The number of ministerial roles led by women has risen 26% since 2008, yet the share considered high-influence was “virtually unchanged today,” the report found.
Despite nearly $1 trillion being invested globally in artificial intelligence, fewer than one in five AI engineers are women, and they remain underrepresented at every level of AI firms.
For the 17th consecutive year, Iceland leads the global ranking with 93% of its gender gap closed, followed by Finland and Norway, with Sweden also maintaining a consistent top-10 position since 2006.
Namibia ranked fourth globally, placing higher than Germany in ninth, the United Kingdom in fifth and Australia in eighth.
The United States dropped five places to 47th in the rankings, with 74.9% of its gender gap closed, despite achieving full parity in education for a second consecutive year.
Parity in senior management in the US has fallen by almost 11 points since 2006, and the country’s political score dropped 4.1 points after the share of women ministers declined sharply.
The decline coincided with a lower share of women serving as Cabinet secretaries under President Donald Trump’s second administration, and the WEF kept the US head-of-state indicator at zero, as the country has never had a female president.
India remains stuck at 131st in the rankings with 64.5% gender parity closed, and women’s labor-market participation has barely moved in two decades despite a 4.3 percentage-point overall rise since 2006.
Among legislators, senior officials and managers in India, parity stands at just 13.1%, and the share of women in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet has slipped to 5.9% from a 30% peak in 2019.
China rose seven places to 96th, closing 69.9% of its gender gap, with economic parity its strongest pillar at 72.3%, though women still account for only a fraction of ministers.
Namibia, reaching 84.5% parity, leads Sub-Saharan Africa, and last year Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah became the country’s first female president, with women also holding the vice-presidency and parliament speakership.
Kenya rose 33 places to 65th, Ghana climbed 32 places to 56th, and Angola moved up 30 places to 87th, making African nations among the biggest climbers in the 2026 rankings.
The WEF identified Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Iceland, Mexico, Namibia and Nepal as the countries that have progressed most in closing gender gaps since the index began in 2006.
