Bahrain ranks among top nations for wage equality, gender parity, and political empowerment

TDT | Manama        

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Women in Bahrain now have more reasons to smile while drawing their monthly wages. According to the latest Global Gender Gap Report, Bahrain has emerged as a global leader in ensuring wage equality between men and women for similar work.

Bahrain secured the 23rd position out of 146 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum report, making it the second-highest in gender parity among GCC nations after the UAE.

The report highlights Bahrain’s achievement of more than 20% representation of women in ministerial positions, along with Tunisia and Morocco. Bahrain is also recognised as one of the economically developed countries, with a significant reduction of 72.8% in the gender wage gap for similar work.

The Global Gender Gap Report assesses countries based on economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment, aiming to reduce gender disparities and promote women’s involvement in sustainable development.

The achievements raised Bahrain’s position by 18 ranks from a year ago to take the 113th position this year on the global index. The Kingdom experienced a jump of 38 ranks in political empowerment, reaching the 99th position, while it also gained 9 places in economic participation and opportunities, reaching the 122nd rank.

Additionally, Bahrain, the report said, excels in sub-indices such as literacy rate, educational attainment, and sex ratios at birth. However, scoring 66.6% in closing the gender gap, Bahrain performs slightly below the global average of 68%. In the MENA region, Bahrain achieved a noteworthy advancement, climbing six places from the previous year to secure the third spot.

The report further acknowledges Bahrain’s commitment to implementing policies and measures that have positively contributed to progress in political and economic participation. Notably, Kuwait and Qatar also achieved significant results in political empowerment within the region.