Equality is stalling or backsliding for a billion women and girls

Gender equality is either stalling or sliding in nearly 40% of the world’s countries, a new report has found — and almost 860 million women and girls are living in places ranked as “very poor” when it comes to women’s economic well-being, education, health, and beyond. Those are the results of the SDG Gender Index, which was published by the coalition group Equal Measures 2030 earlier this week. By tracking 139 countries along 56 indicators — including rates of maternal mortality, child marriage, and girls’ enrollment in school — the index found that not a single country is on track to achieving gender equality by the Sustainable Development Goals’ 2030 deadline. “People might on the surface think, oh yes, I assumed the situation was getting worse,” said Alison Holder, the executive director of Equal Measures 2030. “But when you’re dealing with an index like this, which includes 56 issues that are weighted equally and go into the index score — for a country to actually be going in the wrong direction, that means they’re going in the wrong direction across a huge number of issues.” Over 1 billion women live in countries where gender equality is either going backward or stagnating, the report stated. Forty-five countries received the worst ranking on the index — very poor — with those nations home to nearly 860 million of the world’s women. Of those countries, Afghanistan had the lowest ranking of all, while also registering the steepest plunge in gender equality between 2019 and 2022. Afghanistan’s scores follow the Taliban’s return to power. Since 2021, the group has enacted more than 70 laws aiming to erase women from public life, according to UN Women — and late last month, a new set of directives crushed those rights even further. Women in Afghanistan can no longer speak aloud in public, show their faces outdoors, travel without a male guardian, or look at a man they are not related to. Earlier this week, Rina Amiri, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, said the law aimed to “complete the erasure of women from public life.” “There are no solutions to Afghanistan’s peace, security & sustainability challenges without Afghan women in deliberations concerning Afghanistan's future,” the diplomat posted on X in late June, two months before the new law came into effect. While not ranking as poorly as Afghanistan, 44 other countries are registered in the same category, such as Chad, Niger, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Another 1.5 billion girls and women lived in countries ranked as having “poor” gender equality, while 1.2 billion were living in countries ranked as “fair.” And within that latter category, there were other surprises: Costa Rica, for example, outscored the United States despite having just one-third of the larger country’s per capita gross domestic product. “The U.S. is one of the world’s richest countries, yet it was already performing poorly based on what we would expect. And then to also see that score moving in the wrong direction — that’s really concerning,” said Holder, referring to the country’s rank of 40 out of 139. Though the U.S. has a GDP more than 40% higher than China’s, the two countries earned the exact same score on the gender index — one that was 7.8 points lower than Canada, the U.S.’ closest neighbor. Canada ranked 18 out of 139 and slotted into the “good” category. The reasons for the U.S.’s decline were varied, from a reduction in female political participation to the country’s rollback of abortion rights with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The U.S. was the only country in the index to rescind abortion laws between 2019 and 2022, the index reported, though Poland was also called out for its own near-total abortion ban, and Belarus’ “repressive measures against female activists,” such as forced disappearance and torture, were also brought to the fore. Only one nation — Switzerland — was ranked as “very good,” and many countries traditionally seen as leaders on gender equality showed no improvement in their scores between 2019 and 2022. In fact, the report found that more countries moved backward on gender equality between 2019 and 2022 compared to the period between 2015 and 2019, jumping from 10 backsliding countries to 17 during the pre-pandemic and pandemic years. One of those countries was Kenya, which made headlines after Rebecca Cheptegei — a Ugandan Olympic athlete — was set on fire outside of her Kenyan home. On Thursday, the runner died as a result of the attack, which was committed by her ex-boyfriend. “These countries are a real mixed bag,” said Holder. “This isn’t the case where [gender equality declines because of] a massive disruption, or a humanitarian crisis or conflict. That’s the case in some countries, but not all of them.” If current trends continue, the world won’t achieve gender equality for nearly a century, the report stated, a stall that will have ripple effects on 74% of the SDG targets. “We’re stuck in an inequality trap, which is breeding crisis and turbulence, which will then generate further inequality,” Holder told Devex. “I think that vicious cycle is less often understood.” Despite the world’s overall dismal progress, there were a few bright spots in the index. Switzerland’s move toward “very good” gender equality can be tracked, with the index pointing out specific actions that the country has taken toward improving its standing, from amending laws on sexual orientation to expanding family leave. Between 2019 and 2022, nearly one-third of all countries also made “fast progress” toward gender equality: Kuwait, Vietnam, and Argentina, for example, moved from the poor to fair category over the three years surveyed, while Latvia and Lithuania went from fair to good. “It’s really interesting to look at those countries that did make fast progress, because they’re all starting from different starting points,” said Holder. “There’s a general correlation between a country’s income and gender equality, but it’s not always the case. I take a lot of hope from those countries who are able to do more for gender equality than you would expect.” Progress is also evident among specific indicators within the 56 surveyed, Holder explained, such as women’s access to the internet, digital banking systems, and the number of women in parliament. Still, most of the countries that made “fast progress” began from a very low starting point. Though Chad, Guinea, and Iraq moved forward on gender equality, for example, all three countries remained in the lowest-ranked category year after year. “My overall reaction was really one of alarm,” said Holder. “The progress is just really, really slow. Absolutely dismal.”