Global Gender Gap Index
Also known as: GGGI, WEF Gender Gap Index, Global Gender Gap Report Index
The Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) is the headline measure of the World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Report, first published in 2006. It benchmarks gender parity by measuring female-to-male ratios across four subindexes — economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment — and reports the share of each gap that has been closed, deliberately ignoring countries' absolute levels of development.
Key highlights
- Isolates gender parity from level of development, so rankings are not dominated by national wealth.
- Transparent ratio construction makes the score easy to interpret as the share of the gap closed.
- Covers political empowerment in depth, including head-of-state tenure, a dimension thin in other indices.
- Published annually for over 140 economies since 2006, giving a long, consistent benchmarking series.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the GGGI to compare and rank countries on how close they are to gender parity independent of their level of development, and to track progress toward closing gaps over time. It is well suited to advocacy, communication, and cross-country benchmarking. It is less appropriate when absolute outcomes matter — because it caps ratios at parity and ignores levels, it cannot tell you whether women are well-off, only whether they are close to men; a country can score highly on health and education at very low absolute levels for both sexes.
Strengths & limitations
- Isolates gender parity from level of development, so rankings are not dominated by national wealth.
- Transparent ratio construction makes the score easy to interpret as the share of the gap closed.
- Covers political empowerment in depth, including head-of-state tenure, a dimension thin in other indices.
- Published annually for over 140 economies since 2006, giving a long, consistent benchmarking series.
- Capping ratios at parity erases information about domains where women exceed men, treating them as equality.
- By ignoring absolute levels, a high score can coexist with poor outcomes for both sexes.
- The political subindex is volatile because head-of-state and ministerial indicators change sharply with single elections.
- Wage-equality and estimated-income indicators rely on survey perceptions and imputation of uneven quality.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
Why does the index cap female-to-male ratios at 1?
The GGGI measures the gap between women and men, not which sex is ahead. Capping each ratio at parity means a country gets full credit when women reach men's level but no extra credit when they surpass it. This keeps the index focused on closing gaps to women's disadvantage and prevents a reverse gap — for example women's higher life expectancy — from inflating a country's apparent equality.
Can a poor country rank above a rich one on the GGGI?
Yes, and this is by design. Because the index uses ratios and ignores absolute levels, a lower-income country that distributes its outcomes evenly between women and men can outrank a wealthier country with larger gaps. The score reflects how equally outcomes are shared, not how good those outcomes are in absolute terms.
How does the GGGI differ from the UNDP's Gender Inequality Index?
The GGGI averages truncated female-to-male ratios across economy, education, health, and politics, ignoring levels. The GII instead combines reproductive health, empowerment, and labour using an association-sensitive aggregation and includes women's absolute health outcomes. They use different indicators and arithmetic and frequently produce different rankings, so they should be cited as distinct measures answering related but separate questions.
Sources
- 1.World Economic Forum (2023). Global Gender Gap Report 2023. World Economic Forum, Geneva.
- 2.Hausmann, R., Tyson, L. D., & Zahidi, S. (2006). The Global Gender Gap Report 2006. World Economic Forum, Geneva.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Global Gender Gap Index. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/gender-studies/global-gender-gap-index