{"id":13326,"date":"2013-11-05T11:58:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T15:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=13326"},"modified":"2013-11-05T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T16:14:18","slug":"22-countries-outrank-gender-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/22-countries-outrank-gender-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"22 Countries Outrank U.S. in Gender Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Susan Weiss Gross from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taketheleadwomen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Take The Lead<\/a>, an initiative to propel women to leadership positions, looks at the U.S.&#8217;s dismal standing when it comes to women&#8217;s pay and political empowerment.<\/h1>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13330\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13330\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn1.thestoryexchange.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/07183600\/5945344_gender-equality-gap-scale.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13330\" alt=\"Image by: ginasanders \/ 123RF Stock Photo\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.thestoryexchange.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/07183600\/5945344_gender-equality-gap-scale.jpg\" width=\"260\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn1.thestoryexchange.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/07183600\/5945344_gender-equality-gap-scale.jpg 260w, https:\/\/cdn1.thestoryexchange.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/07183600\/5945344_gender-equality-gap-scale-180x105.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13330\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.123rf.com\/photo_5945344_dolls-on-balancing-scales-horizontally-framed-shot.html\">ginasanders \/ 123RF Stock Photo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There are 22 countries, including Burundi, Nicaragua, Latvia, Lesotho, and the Philippines, where women have greater equality with men than they do in the United States, according to the World Economic Forum\u2019s 2013\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www3.weforum.org\/docs\/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Global Gender Gap Report<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0Using educational, economic, health, and political indicators, the report measures the parity between men and women in 136 countries, which together contain 93% of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n<p>The report, released on October 24, examines whether there is a gap between men and women in these four fundamental categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Economic Participation and Opportunity<\/strong>, measured by women\u2019s participation in the labor force, women\u2019s income, women\u2019s wages compared to men\u2019s, and the ratio of women to men in higher-ranking positions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Educational Attainment<\/strong>, measured by gender parity in literacy and in access to primary, secondary, and higher education.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Health and Survival<\/strong>, measured by comparing female to male life expectancy and the ratio of female to male births.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Political Empowerment<\/strong>, measured by the ratio of women to men in minister-level and parliamentary positions and by the number of women heads of state over the last 50 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The United States ranks high on gender equality in educational attainment and in health and survival\u2014tied for first with a number of other countries.<\/p>\n<p>While the United States ranks sixth overall regarding gender equality in economic participation and opportunity, we rank a dismal 67th\u00a0in equality between men\u2019s and women\u2019s pay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/women-business-owners\/\">How Much Do Women Business Owners Make?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But the area where the United States lags furthest behind other countries in closing the gender gap is political empowerment.\u00a0 The United States ranks 76th\u00a0in the ratio of women to men in parliamentary (i.e., legislative) positions and 32nd\u00a0in the ratio of women to men in ministerial (i.e. executive branch) positions.\u00a0 Women make up only 18.3% of the 113th\u00a0Congress.\u00a0 An impressive 47 countries have had at least one female head of state over the last 50 years.\u00a0 The U.S. has had none.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the countries with the greatest equality between men and women are all Nordic: Iceland in first place, Finland in second, Norway in third, and Sweden in fourth. (The remaining Nordic country, Denmark, is in eighth place.)<\/p>\n<p>The report notes that the success of the Nordic countries is due in no small part to their having adopted family-friendly national policies that have helped women to achieve equality with men.\u00a0 For example, they all mandate generous paid maternity leave and paid parental leave as well as publicly financed child care.\u00a0 In contrast, the United States has no federal law mandating paid maternity or parental leave and only a handful of states\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Parental_leave\" target=\"_blank\">provide for these benefits in a limited way<\/a>. \u00a0 Only low income families in the U.S. are eligible for subsidized child care, and just\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/issues\/labor\/news\/2012\/08\/16\/11978\/fact-sheet-child-care\/\" target=\"_blank\">a small percentage of those families actually receive it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the United States lags behind most countries in family-friendly policies. For example, the U.S. is among only four countries in the world that have no national law mandating paid maternity leave (the others are Swaziland, Liberia, and Papua New Guinea) and the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not require paid parental leave, which allows mothers (and sometimes fathers) to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/02\/04\/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html\" target=\"_blank\">take paid time off to care for a child<\/a>. (The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dol.gov\/whd\/regs\/compliance\/whdfs28.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Family and Medical leave Act of 1993<\/a>\u00a0does allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for family and medical reasons, such as the birth or illness of a child.)<\/p>\n<p>The other countries that have done a better job than the U.S. in closing the gender gap are Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Cuba, South Africa, The United Kingdom, Austria, Canada, and Luxembourg.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/25-years-women-needed-male-cosigner\/\">25 Years Since Women Needed a Male Co-Signer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susan Weiss Gross from Take The Lead looks at the U.S.&#8217;s dismal standing when it comes to women&#8217;s pay and political empowerment. Nicaragua, Lesotho and the Philippines rank higher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":13330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[20586,19665,19727],"class_list":["post-13326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now","tag-family-friendly-policies","tag-gender-equality","tag-womens-empowerment"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.3 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>22 Countries Outrank U.S. in Gender Equality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Susan Weiss Gross from Take The Lead, an initiative to propel women to leadership positions, looks at the U.S.&#039;s dismal standing when it comes to women&#039;s pay and political empowerment. 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