United States Ranked 19th in Gender Equality

We're number 19! We're number 19! Hm ... that doesn't have quite the snazzy ring we might like. But the United States ranking number 19 on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report (pdf) is big news, because we've never broken into the top 20 before. Actually, last year we were ranked number 31. Yikes.

Of course, it would be nice if being number 19 wasn't such a big deal for us: you'd think the U.S. of A. could put itself into a better position when it comes to gender equity. But we're just not competitive with the gender progressive Nordic countries, which consistently dominate the top four. To be fair, we're quite a ways out of their league, with a number of other countries between us too.

So what's the good, the bad, and the ugly of America's position on gender equality? We're among the top ranked countries when it comes to education, with high literacy levels and educational enrollment for both men and women, so Americans can feel free to gloat over that one, at least. And we're none too shabby on economic participation and opportunity: we come in at number six, with 68% of women in the labor force and 80% of men, a decent ratio of women in managerial positions, and a women's income increase that gives a boost. Unfortunately, with a high perceived wage inequality when men and women do work of the same kind (putting us at 64 on that sub-item), we lose points.

Dragging us down, we're ranked 38 in health and survival, and 40 in political empowerment. The number of women in Congress and other government positions is just depressing, and of course, there's a big fat zero next to the number of years with a female head of state. We could fill in this gap a bit this election cycle by voting in more female candidates, like Robin Carnahan in Missouri or Krystal Ball in Virginia.

At the bottom of the list of countries, those who do particularly poorly on gender equity, which lets us feel better about ourselves: Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Benin, Saudi Arabia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Pakistan, Chad and Yemen. But the United States shouldn't be comparing itself to the worst contenders: don't we want to be better than that? Not trumped by almost all of western Europe?

Photo credit: Moe_