China Ranked 99th Best Country in the World for Women

2016-12-05 ThatsShanghai

By Bridget O'Donnell

A ranking of the world's best countries for women and gender equality for this year has just been released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Out of 142 countries surveyed, China earned a rather disappointing 99th place ranking in the 2016 Global Gender Report.

The WEF survey studied gender gaps in a wide variety of areas such as education, healthcare, politics and economics to come up with a "gender gap" score. The highest possible score was one, indicating 100 percent equality, while the lowest score was zero, indicating total inequality.

China earned a score of 0.676, falling just behind Belize and ahead of Sri Lanka.

Some China statistics from the Global Gender Report

The Middle Kingdom still managed to place above Japan (111) and South Korea (116). But it ranked behind other Asian countries such as Mongolia (58), Vietnam (65), Thailand (71), Bangladesh (72), India (87) and Indonesia (88).

Nordic countries dominated the list, with the first four spots going to Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom bottomed out the top 20, while the United States came in at #45 — dropping a whole 17 places from last year.

Overall, the top ten countries were as follows:
1. Iceland — 0.874
2. Finland — 0.845
3. Norway — 0.842
4. Sweden —0.815
5. Rwanda — 0.800
6. Ireland — 0.797
7. Philippines —0.786
8. Slovenia —0.786
9. New Zealand —0.781
10. Nicaragua —0.780

And the top ten in Asia:
1. Philippines — 0.786 (7th overall)
2. Laos — 0.724 (43rd)
3. Singapore — 0.712 (55th)
4. Mongolia — 0.705 (58th)
5. Vietnam — 0.700 (65th)
6. Thailand — 0.699 (71st)
7. Bangladesh — 0.698 (72nd)
8. Kyrgyzstan — 0.687 (81st)
9. Azerbaijan — 0.684 (86th)
10. India — 0.683 (87th)

And here were the bottom ten:
144. Yemen — 0.516
143. Pakistan — 0.556
142. Syria — 0.567
141. Saudi Arabia — 0.583
140. Chad — 0.587
139. Iran — 0.587
138. Mali — 0.591
137. Morocco — 0.597
136. Cote d'Ivoire — 0.597
135. Lebanon — 0.598

[Image via Chinese Posters, World Economic Forum // h/t Atlas and Boots]