Thirty years ago, the world agreed to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. A blueprint for women and girls’ rights worldwide that transformed the women’s rights agenda across several dimensions. Despite these worthy objectives, the World Economic Forum recently estimated that with current rates of improvement, full gender parity will be reached in 134 years, or around the year 2158.
The theme of the International Women’s Day 2025 is “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.” The theme underlines the importance of empowering the next generation as catalysts for lasting change. Empowering youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls is central to the vision of a future where no one – irrespective of gender – is left behind.
To get an idea of the size of the mountain to be climbed, dive into the data available at the World Development Indicators database of the World Bank. The database allows detailed analysis of the different dimensions of gender parity, how much (or little) progress has been made, and whether differences exist across regions, for instance. The charts below highlight two key areas where progress has been made over the past decades, but where very large gaps remain.
For instance, the share of seats in national parliaments held by women has more than doubled in the period from 1997 to 2023. Still, only about 1 in 4 seats (27 pct) were held by women in 2023 and women took up at least half the seats of parliament in only six countries; Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua, Andorra, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates. According to UN Women, it will take another 40 years to reach gender parity in national legislative bodies given current trajectories.
Looking at women’s opportunities in the economy more generally, the World Bank has developed a Women, Business and the Law index. The index combines indicators of the legal environment for women within employment and entrepreneurship on a scale from 0 to 100. Globally, the index stood at 78.9 in 2023 covering regional averages ranging from 54.7 percent in the Middle East and North Africa to 95.6 in North America. Looking at individual countries, only 14 of them received the perfect score of 100, ensuring equal rights for women and men across the dimensions investigated. At the other end of the spectrum 14 other countries received a score below 50, signaling the need for significant reforms to improve the legal framework surrounding women’s economic opportunities.
While there exists a multitude of reasons for pursuing gender equality in the legal frameworks surrounding women’s employment and entrepreneurship, the economic incentives are by themselves stark. A couple of years ago the World Bank estimated that GDP per capita could increase by up to 20 percent if gender employment gaps were eliminated.
Yet another reminder that we should all make a push to ensure it will not only be our great-great-great-granddaughters who experience gender equality by 2158.
#ForAllWomenAndGirls and for everyone irrespective of gender.
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