Ahead of International Women’s Day, PwC has released its annual “Women in Work Index”. Focusing on 2017, the research evaluates female economic empowerment via several measures such as equality of earnings, ability of women to access employment opportunities and job security. Out of 33 OECD countries in the analysis, Iceland was named the best nation for female workers with an index score of 79.1. Sweden came second with 76.1 while New Zealand was third with 73.6.
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Nordic countries occupied five of the top-10 places while the world’s largest English-speaking economies have a lot of work to do to catch up. Canada was the highest ranked in 11th place while the UK came 13th. The U.S. only managed a score of 61.1, meaning it comes in 23rd. Since 2000, Luxembourg and Poland have made the most notable improvements while Portugal, the U.S. and Austria have all dropped the most places.
PwC said that an increase in female employment could reap huge economic dividends. For example, if the U.S. matched Sweden’s levels of female employment, its economy would be boosted to the tune of $1.8 trillion. If all OECD nations did the same, the collective increase in GDP would be $6 trillion.
