The Global Gender Gap Persists, But One Country Is Way Ahead of Others

In June, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a nonprofit organization that focuses on topics important to the global public interest, released a report predicting it will likely take another 131 years to close the global gender gap. The “gender gap” refers to the roughly 3.9 billion women on our planet (49.58% of the total population) who do not have the same access to education, health care, economic opportunities, or political empowerment as their male counterparts. Since the first edition of the WEF’s annual report, which was released in 2006, the global gender gap has improved by a mere 4.1 percentage points.

It’s worth noting that in addition to this persistent overall global gender gap, no single nation has achieved full gender equality. But one country comes the closest: Iceland leads the world in gender parity for the 14th consecutive year. The country has a population of 387,758, with females accounting for 48.4%, and women comprise 41.5% of the corporate boards for public limited companies, hold 30 out of the 63 seats (47.6%) in parliament, and outnumber men two to one in college graduations. The United States, in comparison, slid from ranking 27th last year to ranking 43rd out of 146 countries in this year’s analysis.

One of the gender gap indices where the U.S. fared particularly poorly (24.8% compared to Iceland’s 90.1%) is women’s political empowerment. Icelandic women gained the right to vote in parliamentary elections in 1915, just five years before American women won the right to vote. Yet the first woman to be democratically elected president of a country was Icelandic politician Vigdis Finnbogadóttir, who served for four terms starting in 1980. She became the island nation’s first female head of state 36 years after Iceland won independence from Denmark. A full 244 years after the United States gained independence from Great Britain, Senator Kamala Harris became the first female vice president of the United States in November 2020. Who knows how many more years it will take before the U.S. elects its first woman head of state.

So what is Iceland’s secret? And what can we learn from them?

Icelandic parliamentarians have steadily codified gender equality and women’s rights into law. The Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights Irrespective of Gender, enacted in 2000, is a playbook for progressive lawmakers worldwide. The 35 articles within this law include thoughtfully crafted policies aimed at empowering women and cover gender discrimination, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and pay parity. It even includes an article focused exclusively on the “reconciliation of work and family life.”

The Nordic island nation’s journey to achieving 91.2% parity between genders began much earlier than 2000, however. In 1850, Iceland granted equal inheritance rights to both women and men. In 1922, the first female representative was elected to the Icelandic Parliament. In addition to the three months of paid maternal leave granted to new mothers, Icelandic dads have had the right to three months of paid parental leave for the past 20 years.

Iceland’s progressive laws starkly contrast with recent decisions taken by the highest court in our country. For example, the majority of Supreme Court justices broke from decades of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade a year ago. This ruling has prompted independent experts and working groups that are part of the United Nations Human Rights Council to issue a press release last month stating that the “regressive position” taken by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization essentially dismantled “50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion in the country” and “puts millions of women and girls at serious risk.”

President Abraham Lincoln’s second annual message to Congress in 1862 referred to the United States as the “last best hope of Earth.” President Ronald Reagan’s farewell address centered on America’s role as a “shining city on a hill.” The world looks to us for leadership, so why must women wait another 131 years to enjoy the same rights as men — especially when other countries have shown it’s entirely possible to do so much better?