South Africa Is Doing Okay In Closing Gender Gap - WEF report

Every year the World Economic Forum releases a list that ranks countries on the basis of gender equality.

The report measures the discrepancies between the sexes in four categories :

1) Educational attainment

2) Economic participation

3) Political empowerment

4) Health and survival

This years report shows that the United States has slipped from 22nd place in 2006 to 31st place. It is pleasing to see that South Africa sits at position 20 - ahead of countries like Switzerland (40), France (51) and Singapore (77).

According to the analysis published by the World Economic Forum the reasons for South Africa's good performance are :

1) Political empowerment (more than 40% of government ministers are women and more than 33% of parliamentary positions are held by women)

2) Economic indicators such as labour force participation and wage equality are slightly improved

As our country continues to face the challenges of a developing economy and social reconstruction it is good see how we lead the way for Africa in many other areas of development - a good news story!