{
  "id": 10070850,
  "title": "Closing the gap, from the bottom",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/26/closing-the-gap-from-the-bottom",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-26T21:24:56.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Business Recorder",
    "slug": "business-recorder",
    "url": "https://www.brecorder.com/news/40441364/closing-the-gap-from-the-bottom"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Pakistan witnessed its strongest annual improvement in gender parity within a decade, yet remains third-to-last in the World Economic Forum's 2026 Global Gender Gap Report. The nation's overall gender parity score climbed to 59.5 percent, a 5.2 percentage point increase from its 2006 level of 54.3 percent. However, despite this progress, the country still faces significant challenges in achieving gender equality.\n\nEconomically, Pakistan ranks 144th in economic participation and opportunity, with labour-force participation at 81.46 percent for men and a mere 28.21 percent for women. Female representation in leadership roles is even more dismal, comprising only 6.13 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers, and just 3.4 percent of firms with female top managers. This illustrates an economy that leaves a substantial portion of its human capital underutilised, an inefficiency Pakistan cannot afford given its ongoing struggles with investment, productivity, and sustainable growth.\n\nEducation emerges as the most promising area of improvement, driving the majority of this year's progress. Pakistan's educational attainment and tertiary enrolment rates have improved significantly, with female and male enrolment rates at 10.71 and 11.01 percent respectively. Nevertheless, the broader situation remains troubling. Female literacy is at 48.52 percent compared to 69.14 percent for males, and participation rates at both primary and secondary levels are low. The achievement of near-parity between boys and girls in education becomes less impressive when considering the high number of children from both genders who remain out of the education system.\n\nPolitically, the situation is far from reassuring. Women hold 21.69 percent of parliamentary seats, but only 3.45 percent of ministerial positions, placing Pakistan at 107th in political empowerment. The report also highlights deeper issues, including unequal inheritance rights for widows and daughters, limited access to justice, and unequal divorce rights. These disparities follow women from their homes and workplaces into the legal, financial, and political spheres that determine their ability to exercise economic and social independence.\n\nIncremental improvements from an exceptionally low base are significant as every advancement in education, employment, or representation affects the lives of real people. However, celebrating these improvements without addressing the underlying scale of exclusion would be overly complacent. A country cannot achieve higher productivity while most women remain outside the labour force, nor can educational gains fully deliver their economic return if qualified women face barriers when entering employment or advancing to senior positions. Addressing this challenge requires a comprehensive approach, encompassing education, employment, law enforcement, and creating safer workplaces and transport. Additionally, employers and government institutions must examine why women remain so dramatically underrepresented in positions of authority. While Pakistan has made progress and this deserves recognition, being ranked third-to-last is an uncomfortable position from which to claim a victory.",
  "summary": "EDITORIAL: Pakistan’s strongest annual improvement in gender parity in a decade would ordinarily be cause for satisfaction. The challenge, however, is knowing quite what to celebrate when the country still ranks third-last in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2026 . Its overall gender parity score rose to 59.5 percent in 2026, almost three percentage points higher than last year…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}