{
  "id": 8024679,
  "title": "Pakistan ranked third-to-last in WEF's Global Gender Gap Report 2026",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/17/pakistan-ranked-third-to-last-in-wefs-global-gender-gap-report-2026-8024679",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-17T12:44:42.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dawn - Pakistan",
    "slug": "dawn-pakistan",
    "url": "https://www.dawn.com/news/2030632/pakistan-ranked-third-to-last-in-wefs-global-gender-gap-report-2026"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Pakistan occupies the third-to-last spot in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2026, boasting only a 59.5% gender parity, a 3% increase from the previous year. The report assessed gender parity across four key areas: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Among the 38 lower-middle-income economies and seven South Asian countries tracked, Pakistan fared the worst.\n\nOver the years, Pakistan's gender gap has narrowed by 5.2 percentage points, climbing from 54.3% in 2006. However, the report notes that this progress is the strongest year-on-year improvement in the past decade, driven primarily by advancements in educational attainment.\n\nEconomic participation and opportunity saw Pakistan ranked 144th globally, a three-place improvement from 2025. Just 28.21% of women participated in the labor force, compared to 81.46% of men. Almost 94% of legislators, senior officials, and managers were men, while women held just 6.13%. Women were more represented in professional and technical roles, with 30.96% of positions taken by women, compared to 69.04% for men. The country ranked 115th in wage equality for similar work and 140th in estimated earned income. Only 4.9% of firms in Pakistan had female majority ownership, and just 3.4% had female top managers.\n\nEducational attainment saw a significant improvement for Pakistan, pushing it to 130th globally. Male literacy stood at 69.14%, while female literacy was 48.52%. Boys had an 83.01% enrolment rate in primary education, while girls had a 81.08% rate. Tertiary education enrollment was even higher, with 11.01% of men and 10.71% of women enrolled, earning Pakistan the top spot among all countries for this category.\n\nHealth and survival ranked Pakistan 127th globally. The country came out on top in sex ratio at birth, demonstrating parity between male and female births. Male healthy life expectancy was 57.1%, compared to 56.69% for women.\n\nIn political empowerment, Pakistan ranked 107th globally. Women made up 21.69% of parliamentarians, with men comprising 78.31%. Additionally, 96.55% of ministerial positions were held by men, while only 3.45% were occupied by women. With a female head of state ruling for 4.73 of the last 50 years, Pakistan ranked 39th in this subindex. Women in Pakistan didn't enjoy equal inheritance rights for widows and daughters, but they had \"near-equal rights\" for access to financial services, land assets, and non-land assets. Women had \"restricted rights\" when it came to access to justice, but they had \"equal rights\" for freedom of movement. They also faced \"unequal rights\" regarding divorce and had \"restricted rights\" concerning reproductive autonomy.",
  "summary": "Pakistan ranked third-to-last in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2026, with 59.5 per cent gender parity, up almost 3pc from last year . The annual report benchmarked the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Pakistan scored…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Dawn",
        "title": "Pakistan ranked third-to-last in WEF's Global Gender Gap Report 2026",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/17/pakistan-ranked-third-to-last-in-wefs-global-gender-gap-report-2026",
        "published": "2026-09-17T12:44:42.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "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."
}