Philippines improves to 16th place in gender equality

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines climbed three places and remained among the leading countries in East Asia and the Pacific in terms of gender equality in this year’s Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Released yesterday, the report showed the Philippines climbed to 16th place with a gender parity score of 0.791 this year from the 19th spot and a score of 0.783 last year. A score of one indicates full parity.

The latest result means the country has achieved 79.1 percent gender parity.

“Despite an improvement of three positions and 0.88 percentage points since last year, this is only a partial recovery towards its 2018 parity level (79.9 percent),” the WEF said.

In the East Asia and the Pacific region, the Philippines placed second to New Zealand in terms of gender parity.

“New Zealand, the Philippines and Australia have the highest parity at the regional level, with Australia and New Zealand also being the two most-improved economies in the region,” the WEF said.

The WEF’s index ranks countries based on the progress toward gender gaps between women and men across four dimensions: economic opportunities, education, health and political leadership.

In terms of economic participation and opportunity, the Philippines’ ranking slid to 17th place this year from 16th place last year.

While the Philippines maintains full parity in senior officer and technical workers, the WEF said women’s income is just 71.6 percent that of men.

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ ranking in educational attainment went up to 32nd place this year from the previous year’s 46th.

As for health and survival, the Philippines dropped to 86th place this year from 30th last year.

“After being close to parity on health and survival since 2006, the country has regressed on this subindex (96.8 percent) due to a slight decline in sex ratio at birth,” the WEF said.

When it comes to political empowerment, the Philippines’ ranking improved to 30th this year from 35th in the previous year.