Pakistan has improved its position by five places in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report, moving from 148th place in 2025 to 143rd among 145 countries and economies covered in the 2026 report.
The improvement marks Pakistan’s strongest year-on-year progress in the gender gap index in the last decade. However, despite moving up five positions, Pakistan continues to remain among the lowest-ranked countries in the global ranking. The latest figures show that the country still faces major differences between men and women, particularly in employment, income and access to economic opportunities.
According to the 2026 Global Gender Gap Report, Pakistan’s overall gender parity score increased from 56.7% in 2025 to 59.5% in 2026. This represents an improvement of 2.8 percentage points in one year.
The report, released by the World Economic Forum on September 16, measures the differences between women and men in four major areas: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
Pakistan Shows Improvement in Gender Parity
The latest results show that Pakistan has made progress in closing its gender gap compared with previous years. The country’s overall score has increased by 5.2 percentage points since 2006, when Pakistan recorded a gender parity score of 54.3%.
The 2026 report describes the latest improvement as Pakistan’s strongest annual progress in a decade. Much of the improvement has come from better results in education, while political representation has also shown some gains.
However, the increase in the score does not mean that gender equality has been achieved. Pakistan is still ranked 143rd out of 145 economies, which places it near the bottom of the global list.
The World Economic Forum says that the index is designed to measure the distance between women and men in different areas rather than simply measuring the level of development of a country. A higher percentage means a country has closed a larger part of its gender gap.
Education Becomes a Major Area of Progress
Education was one of the strongest areas of improvement for Pakistan in the latest report.
Pakistan recorded a gender parity score of 91.7% in educational attainment in 2026. This is the country’s highest score in this category so far and represents an increase of more than six percentage points compared with the previous year.
The improvement also shows a much larger change over the longer term. Pakistan’s educational parity score has increased from 70.6% in 2006 to 91.7% in 2026.
This means that the education gap between women and men has become much smaller over the past two decades. The report says that improvements in education have been one of the main factors behind Pakistan’s better overall gender parity score.
Pakistan ranked 130th globally in educational attainment in the 2026 index.
The progress is important because education can provide women with better access to jobs, skills and other opportunities. However, the report also shows that improvements in education have not yet resulted in similar progress in the workplace.
Economic Participation Remains a Major Challenge
While Pakistan has made progress in education, economic participation continues to be its weakest area.
Pakistan scored only 36.4% in the Economic Participation and Opportunity category. It ranked 144th globally in this area and remained at the bottom among South Asian countries included in the index.
The score did improve by 1.6 percentage points compared with 2025. However, it is still 0.5 percentage points below Pakistan’s 2006 score in the same category.
The figures highlight a major issue: more women may be gaining access to education, but many still face difficulties when trying to enter the workforce, earn income and reach senior positions.
The report says Pakistan has one of the widest workforce gender gaps in the world. The parity level in labour-force participation stands at 34.6%.
Women make up 44.9% of professional and technical workers. However, their representation among legislators, senior officials and managers is only 6.5%.
There has been some long-term progress in senior positions. The share of women in these roles has tripled over time, according to the report. Still, the overall level remains low.
Another major concern is income. Pakistan’s estimated earned-income parity stands at just 26.3%. The figure has also fallen by 7.7 percentage points over the past two decades.
These numbers show that economic equality remains one of the biggest issues affecting Pakistan’s overall position in the gender gap index.
Women’s Participation in the Workforce
Women’s participation in Pakistan’s economy remains a major concern beyond the figures included in the WEF index.
A separate report launched by the European Union, National Commission on the Status of Women and United Nations Development Programme in June 2026 found that women’s labour-force participation in Pakistan remains around 30%.
The report also said that the gender pay gap remains above 20%, while many women continue to work in low-paid, informal and less secure jobs. Women are also less represented in positions with greater authority and decision-making power.
These findings help explain why Pakistan continues to perform poorly in the economic section of the Global Gender Gap Index even though progress has been recorded in education.
For Pakistan to improve its overall position, increasing women’s access to jobs and economic opportunities will remain an important area of focus.
Political Empowerment Also Improves
Pakistan also recorded progress in political empowerment in the latest gender gap report.
The country received a score of 14.1% in this category and ranked 107th globally. Compared with the previous edition, parity at the parliamentary level increased by 7.1 percentage points, while parity at the ministerial level improved by 3.6 percentage points.
The report also notes that Pakistan’s position in political empowerment improved by 11 places.
However, the figures still show a large gap between women and men in political decision-making. Pakistan’s score at the head-of-state level has remained extremely low, with the report noting that this figure has remained unchanged since 2010.
This means that although women’s representation in some political areas has improved, the country still has considerable room for progress in ensuring greater representation of women in important decision-making roles.
Health and Survival Score
Pakistan performed better in the Health and Survival category than in economic participation and political empowerment.
The country recorded a score of 95.9% in this area. The report says the subindex has improved by 0.8 percentage points since 2006, mainly because of better parity in healthy life expectancy.
Health and survival is one of the four areas used by the WEF to calculate the overall gender gap score. Along with education, economic participation and political empowerment, it provides a broader picture of the differences between women and men in a country.
Pakistan Still Near the Bottom of the Ranking
Despite the five-place improvement, Pakistan’s overall ranking remains a concern.
The country stands at 143rd among 145 economies, meaning only two economies are ranked below it in the 2026 index.
Pakistan also recorded the lowest score among the 38 lower-middle-income economies included in the report and among the seven South Asian economies covered.
The latest ranking therefore needs to be viewed in two ways. On one hand, Pakistan has made measurable progress compared with last year and has achieved its strongest annual improvement in a decade. On the other hand, the country still has one of the largest gender gaps in the world.
The five-place rise is therefore a sign of improvement in the latest data, but it does not remove the wider challenges facing women in Pakistan.
Global Gender Gap Also Remains Wide
The report also provides a picture of the global situation.
The 2026 Global Gender Gap Report covers 145 economies and marks the 20th edition of the index. Globally, 69.2% of the gender gap has been closed.
However, the World Economic Forum estimates that, at the current rate of progress, it could take around 120 years to achieve full global gender parity.
No economy reached complete gender parity in the 2026 report. Iceland remained at the top of the ranking, followed by Finland and Norway.
The WEF also warned that progress made over the past 20 years remains fragile. Political empowerment has recorded major gains over the long term, but progress in this area has reversed from its peak in recent years.
The report further highlights the growing importance of technology and artificial intelligence. Women remain underrepresented in AI-related jobs, including engineering roles, raising concerns that new economic opportunities could also create new gender gaps.
What the Latest Figures Mean for Pakistan
Pakistan’s latest performance shows that improvements are possible, particularly in education.
The sharp increase in the education score is one of the clearest positive developments in the report. It suggests that the gap between men and women in educational opportunities has narrowed considerably over the past 20 years.
However, the economic figures show that education alone has not been enough to close the wider gender gap.
Women need opportunities to use their education and skills in the workplace. Their participation in the labour market, access to better-paying jobs and presence in senior positions remain important challenges.
The income figures also show that economic inequality remains a serious issue. While women are increasingly gaining education and professional skills, the economic benefits of that progress are not reaching them at the same level as men.
A Long Road Ahead
Pakistan’s five-place improvement in the Global Gender Gap Report 2026 is an important change in the latest ranking. The country’s overall score has also improved by 2.8 percentage points in one year, reaching 59.5%.
The country has also narrowed its gender gap by 5.2 percentage points since 2006.
At the same time, Pakistan remains 143rd out of 145 economies, showing that the overall gap is still large. Economic participation continues to be the weakest area, while education has emerged as the strongest source of recent progress.
The figures suggest that the next challenge is to turn educational progress into greater economic participation, better income opportunities and stronger representation in leadership roles.
The latest report does not show that Pakistan has solved its gender equality problems. Instead, it shows a mixed picture: measurable improvement in several areas alongside continuing and significant gaps.
For Pakistan, maintaining progress in education while expanding women’s access to employment, income and decision-making opportunities will be important for further narrowing the gender gap in the years ahead.
The 2026 report therefore places Pakistan’s recent improvement in a wider context. The country has moved five places up the global ranking, but it still has a considerable distance to cover before women and men have equal opportunities across economic, educational, health and political areas.
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