MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines saw its ranking drop nine places in the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s index tracking gender parity, but it remains among the leading countries in Eastern Asia and the Pacific region.
WEF’s Global Gender Gap 2024 report released on Wednesday showed the Philippines placed 25th out of 146 economies in terms of gender parity, down from 16th spot last year.
The Philippines had a gender parity score of 77.9 percent this year, below its score of 79.1 percent in 2023.
The WEF report ranks economies based on the progress in closing the gender gap across the following dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival as well as political empowerment.
In terms of economic participation and opportunity, the Philippines’ ranking slid to 20th this year from 17th last year.
The WEF said the country’s economic participation and opportunity score of 77.5 percent is 1.4 percentage points lower than in 2023, despite achieving parity in professional and technical workers (100 percent) and recording progress toward parity in labor force participation to an all-time high (69.3 percent) as it saw a reduction in the share of women legislators, senior officials and managers, as well as a drop in perceived wage equality for similar work.
When it comes to educational attainment, the Philippines ranked first along with Belize, New Zealand, Namibia, Argentina, Ireland, Maldives, Israel, Malta, Colombia, Costa Rica, Botswana, Czechia, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, United Kingdom, Honduras, Lesotho, Latvia, North Macedonia, Mongolia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and the US.
The Philippines placed 32nd in this dimension last year.
“The economy has achieved full parity across all educational attainment indicators, although the shares of women enrolled at each level of education have not all consistently increased across editions of the index,” the WEF said.
In the health and survival dimension, the Philippines placed 86th, the same as last year’s ranking.
“An important 1.6-point gender gap remains in the sex ratio at birth, which lowers the subindex score and places the Philippines among the lowest performers on this indicator,” the WEF said.
The Philippines got the 34th spot in terms of political empowerment, down from 30th last year.
The WEF said the years during which the government was led by Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo continue to elevate the country’s political parity score despite the lower levels of parity in ministerial roles and lack of progress on parliamentary seats.