SDG Goals
Gender equality
A woman pushes a weeder in a rice paddy in Tanzania, where efforts are under way to strengthen women’s land rights and advance rural women’s economic empowerment (see Success Stories for more).
© FAO/Daniel HaydukWomen remain underrepresented in leadership, and progress is slowing
Progress in women’s representation in decision-making positions has been sluggish over the last decade. As of 1 January 2026, the global share of women in lower or single houses of national parliaments reached 27.4 per cent, up 5.1 percentage points since 2015 but only 0.2 points since 2025. Only seven countries had 50 per cent or more women in national parliaments, up from three in 2015. Three countries still have no women representatives, and in 18 countries, women make up less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians. Women’s representation fared better in local government, where their share reached 35.6 per cent in 2025, but annual progress has slowed to just 0.1 percentage points. Compared to 2020, the number of countries with 40 per cent or more women in local government increased from 23 to 41.
Well-designed quotas have proven effective: Countries using quotas elected 15 percentage points more women to national parliaments and 17 percentage points more to local governments than those without them. Yet only 93 countries have legislated quotas for parliaments and just 82 for local governments. Rising harassment and violence, particularly online, are also driving women out of office or deterring them from seeking election in the first place.
A similar pattern holds in the workplace. Women accounted for 30.5 per cent of managerial positions worldwide in 2025, an increase of just 3.6 percentage points since 2015, despite holding around 40 per cent of all jobs globally. At this pace, it would take more than 50 years for women and men to be represented equally in management positions. There are bright spots, however. Sub-Saharan Africa has shown the strongest gains, with women’s share in management positions growing 7.7 percentage points over the last decade. In 2025, it recorded the highest share of women managers globally at 44.6 per cent.
Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments, 2015 and 2026, and local governments, 2020 and 2025 (percentage)
*Excluding Australia and New Zealand.
Gender-responsive budgeting is expanding, but financing and implementation remain inadequate
Advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment requires dedicated policies, adequate funding and robust systems to track and allocate resources. In 2025, 123 countries adopted elements of gender responsive budgeting, up from 69 in 2018. But only one in four of those countries had comprehensive systems in place to track and make public allocations for gender equality – a modest improvement from 19 per cent in 2018.
While 91 per cent of countries reported having gender equality policies in 2025, just over half had allocated sufficient budgets for their implementation. Although the use of tools such as gender budget directives and impact assessments has expanded, efforts to track and evaluate spending have stalled. The use of sex-disaggregated data in budgeting remains stuck at 55 per cent and gender tagging at 28 per cent between 2018 and 2025. More concerning, the share of countries conducting post-spending gender impact assessments has actually fallen, over the same period, from 43 to 37 per cent.
One in three women has experienced violence, a figure barely changed in 20 years
Violence against women remains one of the world’s most persistent and underaddressed human rights crises, with very little progress in two decades. According to 2023 estimates, nearly one in three women globally (840 million) has been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner and/or sexual violence by a non-partner at least once during her lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000. An estimated 11 per cent of ever-partnered women aged 15 and older (316 million) were subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in the past 12 months.
In SIDS, the prevalence of physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence is higher than the global average. Over one in five adolescent girls aged 15-19, and one in four young women aged 20-24 who have ever had a partner, experienced such violence in the past 12 months. This elevated prevalence is likely driven by exposure to natural disasters, conflict, socioeconomic fragility and widespread poverty.
Prevalence estimates of the past 12 months physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence against ever-partnered women and girls, by age group, 2023 (percentage)
Child marriage is declining, and in some countries so is female genital mutilation
Encouragingly, child marriage has become less common globally, with the pace of decline during 2015–2024 double that of the previous decade. Still, today, nearly one in five young women was married before the age of 18, and progress remains slow in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Northern Africa and Western Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia recorded the highest rates of child marriage, where 31 per cent and 25 per cent of young women, respectively, were married in childhood.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a severe violation of girls’ rights and remains pervasive in some countries. At least 230 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to the practice, with around 4 million girls subjected to it every year. FGM is highly concentrated, with prevalence exceeding 90 per cent in some countries. Yet the practice has seen meaningful decline in several countries where it was once prevalent, including Burkina Faso, Kenya and Sierra Leone, demonstrating that change is possible where laws, services and social norms have shifted decisively.
More than half of partnered women still lack full autonomy over their own bodies
According to data across 78 countries, in 2025, 88.5 per cent of women aged 15–49 who are married or in a union reported being able to make their own decisions about contraceptive use, 75 per cent reported similar agency in their reproductive healthcare and 75.4 per cent in their ability to refuse sex. Only 56.3 per cent of women, however, reported full autonomy over all three areas.
There are, however, significant regional disparities. Europe and Northern America had the largest share of women who reported having decision-making ability across all three at 87.2 per cent, while sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest share at 36.8 per cent. Country-level data also reveal substantial disparities within countries, with lower levels of autonomy among young women, rural populations, those with limited education and those living in poorer households. Closing these gaps will require expanding access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, addressing structural inequalities and shifting the gender norms that limit women’s agency.
The legal landscape for women is shifting in the right direction, but troubling gaps remain
Between 2019 and 2025, 99 reforms strengthening gender equality were recorded worldwide, protecting women and girls from domestic violence, rape and child marriage and removing restrictions on women’s employment. While the legal landscape for women is shifting in the right direction, troubling gaps remain. Of 131 countries with data, only 44 per cent prohibit both direct and indirect discrimination; just 38 per cent have consent-based rape laws explicitly criminalizing marital rape; nearly half still restrict women from doing the same jobs as men; and only 23 per cent set the minimum age of marriage without exception at 18. Progress, in other words, is far from complete.
Women’s land rights also remain poorly protected. In 68 out of 78 countries with data, fewer than half of women in agricultural households report owning or holding secure rights to agricultural land. In 23 countries, the share of men having ownership is at least twice that of women. Legal frameworks that guarantee women equal land rights are essential to advancing gender equality. Yet two thirds of the nearly 100 countries reporting lack comprehensive frameworks for secure land tenure, and more than 40 per cent do not guarantee spousal consent or equal inheritance rights. Less than 30 per cent require joint land registration or equal participation in land governance. Advancing women’s economic empowerment will require both stronger legal protections and more consistent implementation of the laws that already exist.