Malta ranks last in the EU in gender gap rankings

Malta’s gender gap ranking continued to slide this year, with the country coming in 88th place out of 135 countries’ gender gaps analysed by the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2012. The country also ranks last in the EU, as in previous years, and when you consider the entire Europe and Central Asia region, Malta ranks sixth to last, before Albania, Armenia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

According to the index, while Malta ranks first in terms of literacy rate, as well as enrolment in primary education and tertiary education, its worst rankings are those related to labour force participation (118th), women in parliament (112th) and economic participation and opportunity (109th).

Four Nordic countries that have consistently held the highest posi- tions in previous editions of the Global Gender Gap Index continue to hold these privileged positions. Iceland still holds the top spot, closely followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Finland and Norway exchange spots in the rankings this year. Although no country has yet achieved gender equality, all of the Nordic countries, with the exception of Denmark, have closed over 80% of the gender gap and thus serve as models and useful benchmarks for international comparisons.

While many global indexes tend to be tied to income levels, thus providing an advantage to the highincome Nordic economies, the Global Gender Gap Index is disassociated from the income and resource level of an economy and instead seeks to measure how equitably the available income, resources and opportunities are distributed between women and men. Despite this feature of the Index, these countries emerge as top performers and true leaders on gender equality.

Malta’s ranking, which was also the European Union’s lowest, continued Malta’s downward trend in the annual index, in which the country ranked 71st in 2006, 76th in 2007 and 83rd in 2008. Since then, it has been moving between the 83rd and 88th positions.

In terms of wage equality for similar work, the country ranked 40th and women were found to have earned 71 per cent of what their male colleagues earn.

As for higher positions within the economy, Malta ranked 88th in terms of economic participation in the posts of legislators, senior officials and managers, and 86th in terms of professional and technical posts being occupied by women.

According to the report, Europe and Central Asia has closed 70% of the gender gap and is second only to North America on the overall Global Gender Gap Index 2012 scores. The region ranks third in the health and survival (98% of gender gap closed) and educational attainment (99% of gender gap closed) sub indexes. Europe and Central Asia ranks second on the economic participation and opportunity sub index, behind North America, and second on the political empowerment sub index behind Asia and the Pacific.

In the overall index, seven European countries rank among the top 10, while 14 European countries rank among the top 20. Four out of the nine countries that have closed both their educational attainment and health and survival gender gaps are from this region. Seven out of the top 20 performing countries on the economic participation and opportunity sub index and 11 out of the top 20 performing countries on the political empowerment sub index are also from the region.

Fourteen of the top 20 countries on the professional and technical workers indicator are from this region, specifically from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Twelve out of the top 20 countries in healthy life expectancy are from the region, primarily from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Six countries from the region are among the 10 lowest performing countries on the sex ratio indicator; all six are in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.