Question Period Note: World Economic Forum Index

Canada’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index

• The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report for 2022 shows us how fragile progress on gender equality can be, and the importance of sustaining our efforts. Globally, we lost a generation of progress on gender equality, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• While Canada’s global ranking remained relatively stable from 2021, at 25th in the world, we are not immune to the impacts of the pandemic on our efforts to advance gender equality.

• The World Economic Forum’s report shows us that we have work remaining to close gender equality gaps in Canada.

• In order to ensure that our progress does not roll back, the Government of Canada will accelerate efforts to advance gender equality through:
o the first ever 2SLGBTQI+ Federal Action Plan announced in August 2022,
o a National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence coming forward later this fall,
o a Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system with all PT agreements in place, and
o national housing and poverty strategies.

• We will also continue to apply Gender-based Analysis Plus to all decision-making to ensure our initiatives reflect the lived experiences of all people in Canada.

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BACKGROUND:

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.

• Since 2006, the WEF has published the Global Gender Gap Index report annually. This report is the longest-standing global index tracking gender equality.

• The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment.

• At the current rate of progress, based on the WEF research, full global gender parity will take 132 years to achieve, which is four years earlier than the 2021 estimate, but still reflects the generational loss that occurred between 2020 and 2021, most prominently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Leading up to 2020, the gap was expected to close within 100 years. The consequences to gender parity were seen across all four dimensions.

• In its 2022 report, the WEF ranked Canada 25th overall, down one spot from 2021 while maintaining its overall score of 0.772 (having closed just over 77% of the gender gap in Canada). It also received the following rankings based on the four key dimensions:

o 1st for Educational Attainment, with a perfect score of 1, indicating full parity, alongside 24 other countries.
o 31st in Political Empowerment, with a score of 0.386. While Canada ranks first in the proportion of women in ministerial positions, progress has not been sufficient in women’s representation in parliament and as head of state.
o 43rd for Economic Participation and Opportunity, with a score of 0.736. While Canada ranked first in parity among professional and technical workers, it can improve in wage equality and women’s representation in senior positions.
o 94th in Health and Survival with a score of 0.968, indicating near parity.
o Canada also ranked first in the regional scoring for North America, where the largest portion of the gender gap has been closed. At this rate, it will take North America around 60 years to reach full gender parity.

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