WEF’s Report Ranks Nigeria 124th in Global Gender Parity

•Says Nigeria trending towards male majority population

•Another 123 years required to close global gender gap

Dike Onwuamaeze

Nigeria scored 0.649 per cent to occupy 124th position in the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap Report 2025,” which stated that Nigeria is trending towards having a majority male population. 

The report released yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, also noted positive developments across economic parity indicators as Nigeria’s labour-force participation rose from 89.9 per cent to 95.6 per cent as female participation grew to its highest recorded levels, and income parity increases from 50.1 per cent to 60.4 per cent after female income resumes an upward slope after a four-year slump.

“These developments place Nigeria on an encouraging trajectory for workforce parity; however, Nigeria’s performance fails to advance in the other three sub-indexes, with the most significant regression occurring in political empowerment (-2.9 points) due to diminished representation of women in ministerial positions, which declined from 17.6 per cent in 2024 to 8.8 per cent in 2025.

“In educational attainment, while literacy rates increase overall for both men and women, male rates (73.7 per cent) grew higher than women’s (53.3 per cent), increasing the gender disparity as a consequence.

“Unlike in many other economies, healthy life expectancy improves in Nigeria for both men and women, although more so for men, thereby diminishing gender parity in this indicator.”

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) report declared it would take another 123 years for the global gender gap to be closed. 

The Global Gender Gap (GGG) report covered 148 economies and revealed both encouraging momentum and persistent structural barriers facing women worldwide.

WEF said the GGG index annually benchmarked the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions, which are economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment and has remained the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since 2006 when it was launched.

The report also said the global gender gap has closed to 68.8 per cent, which is its strongest annual advancement since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It however added a stark leadership gap still persists with women holding only 28.8 per cent of top leadership positions despite women representing 41.2 per cent of the global workforce.

The WEF’s report also ranked Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) sixth with a score of 68 per cent out of eight regional groupings. 

It said that the SSA displayed wide variation across countries, yet its success stories demonstrate that progress is possible in all economic contexts.

“The region has made significant progress in political empowerment, with women now holding 40.2 per cent of ministerial roles and 37.7 per cent of parliamentary seats,” the report said.

The regional leader, according to the report, was Northern America with a gender parity score of 75.8 per cent while Europe ranked second with a gender parity score of 75.1 per cent, having closed 6.3 percentage points of its overall gap since 2006.

Latin America and the Caribbean, Central Asia as well as Eastern Asia and the Pacific were ranked third, fourth and fifth respectively. There gender parity scores were 74.5, 69.8 and 69.4 per cents respectively.

Southern Asia and Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) were ranked seventh and eighth with a score of 64 per cent and 61.7 per cent respectively.

According to the report, Iceland leads the rankings for the 16th year running, followed by Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The Managing Director of WEF, Ms. SaadiaZahidi, said that “advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal” at a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic changes.

Zahidi said: “The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress.”

The report said that progress made in this edition was driven primarily by significant strides in political empowerment and economic participation, while educational attainment and health and survival maintained near-parity levels above 95 per cent.

It said: “Educational attainment is rising, but its economic return remains uneven. Women outpace men in higher education, but their presence in senior leadership stagnates as education levels rise – even the most educated women represent less than one third of top managers.

“This underutilisation of human capital represents both a systemic inefficiency and a missed economic opportunity.”

According to the report, women outpaced men in higher education but only 28.8 per cent of the female gender reached senior leadership, which is a missed opportunity for greater economic resilience and growth amid global uncertainty.

It also added that even though women political empowerment witnessed strongest gains, it still remained the biggest barrier to progress on parity worldwide yet with only 22.9 per cent of the global gap closed to date.

The report said: “Iceland maintains its position as the world’s most gender-equal economy for the 16th consecutive year, with 92.6 per cent of its gender gap closed, distinguishing the country as the only economy to surpass 90 per cent parity.”

It also said that gender gap closed in Finland, Norway, The United Kingdom and New Zealand by 87.9, 86.3, 83.8 and 2.7 per cents respectively.  

The report stated the fastest-moving economies demonstrated that rapid acceleration is possible when gender parity becomes a national priority.

It identified Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Ecuador, Bangladesh and Ethiopia as the economies that proved most successful at bridging their gender gaps across each income group.