The global pay gap between men and women will take 202 years to close, because it is so vast and the pace of change so slow, according to the World Economic Forum.
The WEF, which organises the annual meeting of business and political leaders in
“The overall picture is that gender equality has stalled,” Saadia Zahidi, the WEF’s head of social and economic agendas, said. “The future of our labour market may not be as equal as the trajectory we thought we were on.”
The WEF found that on average women across the world are paid just 63% of what men earn. There is not a single country where women are paid as much as men.
“In the workplace, women still encounter significant obstacles in taking on managerial or senior official roles,” the report said. “When we consider only managers for the subset of countries for which recent data are available, just about 34% of global managers are women.”
Women are also far behind in politics, and the WEF estimated that at the current pace of change it will take 107 years until there are as many female politicians as male.
“When it comes to political and economic leadership, the world still has a long way to go,” the report said. “Across the 149 countries assessed, there are just 17 that currently have women as heads of state, while, on average, just 18% of ministers and 24% of parliamentarians globally are women.”
“Just six other countries (
Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the WEF, said: “The equal contribution of women and men in this process of deep economic and societal transformation is critical. More than ever, societies cannot afford to lose out on the skills, ideas and perspectives of half of humanity.”