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Stagnant gender gap ranking pathetic

By Erica Zucco

Published Oct. 30, 2009

On Wednesday morning, my TweetDeck was scattered with posts about the 2009 Global Gender Gap Index. Most of them essentially had the same theme, echoing @lisaling’s: “Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden lead in gender equality. Where's U.S.? 31st! Pathetic.”

True? Sure. Surprising? Not really. Pathetic? Maybe, but not for the reason you might think.

In 2006, the U.S. had a ranking of 22. In 2007 it dropped to 31 before moving back up a little to 27 in 2008. Now, the country’s back down to 31. It’s disheartening we had a chance to move up since 2006 and have done the opposite, and it’s one more indicator we aren’t as progressive in terms of gender acceptance and equality as the countries that top the list. But it’s not like 31 is a huge jump in any direction. We’re pretty stagnant.

The results aren’t pathetic because we’re relatively far down in the list as far as highly developed countries go. They’re pathetic because we have essentially stagnated and because, based on the flutter of tweets I received, we’re focusing so much on how we compare with other nations rather than closing the gender gap simply to better ourselves or, more importantly, working internationally to do the same.

Rankings are flashy. And as millennials, we’re trained to think about catching up, competing and fitting in. Although we do need to progress as fast as other countries, we need to do this without ranking being our ultimate goal. Closing the gender gap shouldn’t be a competition — it should be a collaborative effort across nations and cultures.

I don’t know the answers to how exactly we go about doing that. I do know a lot of us are entering internships, academic fields and professions centered around public policy and making these very changes. Think about how the findings relate to whatever field you are entering, and what you can do to achieve a positive change.

If you don’t want to read the report, which is admittedly more than 100 pages long, here’s the Cliffs Notes version you should definitely know.

The Index measures gaps, not levels. It captures gaps in outcome variables, and it ranks countries by gender quality rather than women’s empowerment. This means the Index doesn’t rank countries on their development level, which means rich countries with more overall opportunities for health and education don’t automatically rank above less highly developed countries. The U.S. took 13th place in the most recent UN Human Development Report.

The factors contributing to the rankings include everything from labor force participation and education to maternity and childbearing. But some of the most telling pages in the document are the “country profiles” that break down the stats for each nation in the report.

In the U.S. country profile, we learn the U.S. has a No. 1 ranking for educational attainment, literacy rate, enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education and participation and opportunity for professional and technical workers. On the not-so-bright side, we rank 64 in wage equality for similar work. Although you can’t look at these numbers completely side-by-side, it makes for an interesting analysis.

For anyone interested in social justice issues, government, education, the labor force or academia, I encourage you to read this report. Find what’s encouraging. Find what’s problematic. And, if you can, try to find some answers.