RP ranks 6th in gender equality

LONDON – The Philippines ranked sixth and was the only Asian country in the top 10 in a survey of countries that managed to achieve a semblance of equality between the sexes.

Scandinavian countries are the most progressive in the world, but no nation has yet managed to bridge the gender gap completely, a report said Tuesday.

Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland top the World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings, followed by Germany in fifth place.

But a century on from the heyday of the women’s suffrage movement and nearly 40 years since the publication of Germaine Greer’s feminist bible "The Female Eunuch," the report points to only patchy progress.

"We find that no country in the world has yet managed to eliminate the gender gap," it states.

Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a prominent human rights lawyer, echoed this view at the report’s launch in London, saying: "There still is no level playing field for men and women."

The nations studied had, on average, closed about 90 percent of the gender gap in education and health but only 50 percent in economic participation and opportunity, and 15 percent in political empowerment, according to Saadia Zahidi, of the WEF.

Sweden is the only country in the world to close the overall gender gap by more than 80 percent, she added.

Although there are 10 European Union countries in the top 20, five trail towards the bottom of the scale – Greece (69), France (70), Malta (71), Italy (77) and Cyprus (83).

Their positions reflect low levels of political participation by women in decision-making bodies and poor scores in economic participation and opportunity, the report said.

Factors including when the school day ends and whether children are expected to go home for lunch before returning to school may also have "quite a significant impact" on women’s employment, joint report author Laura Tyson, of London Business School, told reporters.

EU newcomers Latvia and Lithuania, which only joined in 2004, are in 19th and 20th position, streaking ahead of the five laggard nations and Austria (26) and Belgium (33).

The report says that Germany’s success is linked to its high levels of female political empowerment, highlighted by the election of Angela Merkel as chancellor last year.

The top five have changed little since the first gender gap study last year, when it consisted of Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

This year’s report praises the political position of women in Scandanavia – Sweden is the only country in the world with an equal number of male and female politicians, while in Finland, Iceland and Norway, women hold at least a third of all ministerial and parliamentary positions.

Scandinavia also leads the field economically – the majority of all professional and technical workers are women.

This position is helped by generous arrangements for women who want to raise a family as well as pursue a career, the report added.

Sweden and Norway "offer amongst the longest maternity leaves and among the best maternity leave benefits in the world, while retaining high levels of women’s labour force participation," the report said.

Denmark is rated eighth this year, while the Britain comes ninth, the United States 22nd, Australia 15th and New Zealand seventh.

The relatively poor position of the US was linked by joint report author Ricardo Hausmann, of Harvard University, to the "weak" performance of women in politics.

The two countries ranked as having the biggest gender gaps by the report are Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where the gap stands at 52 percent and 47 percent respectively.

The study covers 115 countries from around the world, or over 90 percent of the global population, and measures four categories – economic, educational, political and health. – AFP