Australia ranks 13th on gender parity

The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2025 shows Australia's gender parity has improved markedly in the past 12 months.

Australia has jumped 11 places to rank 13^th globally for gender parity, with the gap now 79.2% closed. In Asia Pacific, it ranks second behind New Zealand on 82.7%.

Still, the global gender gap remains just 68.8% closed, with full parity estimated to be 123 years away based on the collective speed of progress made by the 100 economies reviewed by the report since its inception in 2006. That's an improvement of 11 years on last year's estimate.

Iceland continues to have the most gender-equal economy, with its gap 92.6% closed. This was followed by Finland, Norway, the UK, New Zealand, Sweden, Republic of Moldova, Namibia, Germany, and Ireland.

In terms of workforce participation, women now make up 41.2% of the global workforce - up about 2% since 2015. The number of women in senior management roles has also increased, now at 28.8% compared to 26.2% in 2015. And the number of women in middle management roles has also risen from 31.5% to 33.4%.

However, the report did note that women remain overrepresented in healthcare and care services (58.5%) and education (52.9%). They remain underrepresented in infrastructure, oil, gas and mining, and utilities.

From an income perspective, at the aggregate level, high-income economies have closed 74.3% of their gender gap - slightly higher than the averages observed in lower income groups: 69.6% among upper-middle income, 66.0% among lower-middle-income, and 66.4% among low-income economies.

That said, the top performers among lower income economies have closed a greater share of their gender gaps than over half of the economies in the high-income group, the report noted.

"At a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic change, advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal," World Economic Forum managing director Saadia Zahidi said.

"The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress."