In 170 years, women will be earning as much as men

Strides in education haven’t bridged global gap

About 170 years from now, women worldwide will earn as much as men and account for half of the world’s bosses.

That’s how long it will take to achieve economic parity between the sexes, according to the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Report,” an annual study made public Tuesday that measures the relative gaps between women and men in education, health, economic opportunity and political power in 144 countries.

Even as more women than ever attend universities, the report finds that progress toward gender parity in other areas has slowed dramatically. In last year’s report, the forum predicted women would hit economic parity with men in 118 years. In this year’s report, the target date has jumped ahead 53 years — from 2133 to 2186.

And highly industrialized nations can’t blame the worldwide gender imbalance on poor or developing nations. While Nordic nations — Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden — claim the top four spots on the global ranking for gender equity, the African nation Rwanda ranks fifth and Nicaragua displaced Switzerland for 10th place. The index ranks countries on their gender gaps not their development level.

The U. S. failed to crack the top 25, ranking a dismal 45th place, a 17- spot slide from last year.

The U. S. ranking is a paradox. It earns a No. 1 ranking for educational equality — with equal numbers of men and women enrolled in primary education and more women than men enrolled in higher education — but 73rd in political empowerment, 62nd in health and survival, and 26th in economic participation and opportunity. Women are severely underrepresented on the boards of publicly traded companies, which are 81% male.

Rwanda broke into the top 10 with big improvements for women in economic

The United States failed to crack the top 25, ranking a dismal 45th place, a 17- spot slide from last year.

participation and opportunity. It also has the highest share of female parliamentarians in the world, at 64%.

Where a woman lives determines how long she’ll have to wait for social, political and economic parity. Western Europe shows the most promise. Those countries have closed 75% of their gender gap and could close their economic gaps by the time a girl born today hits middle age.