Top 10 Countries with Best Gender Equality in 2025

The World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 released the gender gap ranking of 148 countries using the 2025 Global Gender Gap Index.

The index uses a scale of 0-1 points, with a score of 1 representing full equality. 'Gender gap' refers to the distance from achieving full equality.

Iceland ranked first with a score of 0.926 points in 2025, followed by Finland (0.879 points) and Norway (0.863 points) in second and third place, respectively.

These three European countries maintained their positions from 2024.

Next was the United Kingdom (0.838 points), followed by New Zealand (0.827 points).

Sweden, the Republic of Moldova, Namibia, Germany, and Ireland completed the top 10.

The countries with the largest gender gaps were Pakistan (0.567), Sudan (0.570), and Chad (0.571).

Indonesia ranked 97th with a score of 0.692 points. Although this score indicates a significant gap, it represents an improvement from 2024, when it ranked 100th with a score of 0.686 points.

The WEF also analyzed that the global gender gap score in 2025 for all 148 countries included closed by 68.8%.

Compared to the consistent group of 145 countries included in this year's and last year's editions, the global gender gap closed by +0.3 percentage points in 2025, from 68.4% in 2024 to 68.8% in 2025.

The WEF also noted that, from the consistent group of 100 countries continuously monitored since the first edition in 2006, the gender gap narrowed by 0.4 percentage points, from 68.6% in 2024 to 69.0% in 2025.

The gender gap index score uses several indicators, including economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment.

In addition to the 0-1 scale, the index also expresses progress towards gender equality as a percentage, showing the extent to which the gender gap has been closed on a scale of 0-100%.

The following are the 10 countries with the lowest gender gaps or closest to full equality (1 point) in the WEF's 2025 Global Gender Gap Index:

• Iceland: 0.926 points
• Finland: 0.879 points
• Norway: 0.863 points
• United Kingdom: 0.838 points
• New Zealand: 0.827 points
• Sweden: 0.817 points
• Republic of Moldova: 0.813 points
• Namibia: 0.811 points
• Germany: 0.803 points
• Ireland: 0.801 points.

(Read: Papua Pegunungan Has the Highest Gender Inequality in Indonesia)