Explore inequality of income across African countries

The Gender Gap tool uses Estimated Earned Income data from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023.
Following a methodology originally developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Gender Gap Index estimates the average income earned by women, relative to income earned by men, in a calculation that takes into account a country’s GDP per capita (US$), the share of women and men in the labour force, and their mean nominal wages. To account for globally rising income levels, beginning with 2018’s edition the report no longer caps the maximum income per capita value considered in the calculation. This follows UNDP’s own adjustment of the methodology and the fact that the $40,000 cap formerly used in previous editions of the Global Gender Gap Index had increasingly lost some of its ability to discern the level of gender-based income disparities among high-income nations such as the Nordics, the United States and the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. For a full overview of the 2016 methodology change, please refer to that report edition’s Appendix D.

GenderGap.AFRICA isn’t designed to give breakdowns for each industry: it instead captures the average gender gap across all sectors within a country. Gender gap here represents the gap between men and women in pay.

Country resources and opportunities are not equally distributed between women and men, causing the gender pay gap. Even though qualified women are coming out of the education system, many industries are failing to hire, retain and promote them, losing out on a wealth of capacity.

The report measures gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in countries, rather than the availability of resources and opportunities.

According to the report, men are under-represented in education, health and welfare, while women are under-represented in engineering, manufacturing and construction, as well as information and communications technology. Regardless of the number of women entering these professions, men hold more leadership - and well-paying - positions.

The gender pay gap is a culmination of many factors, creating a glass ceiling that prevents women from exercising equal economic rights.

The WEF report quantifies the magnitude of gender disparities, noting that some regions should expect to see their gender gaps narrow faster than others. Sub-Saharan Africa is due to achieve parity in 102 years, while projections for North Africa suggest closing the gaps will take more than 152 years.

The data used in this tool can be found for each country in the Global Gender Gap Report, 2023 from page 26.

Gender gaps affect society as a whole and have severe social and economic consequences. As Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum, said “When women and girls are not integrated—as both beneficiary and shaper—the global community loses out on skills, ideas and perspectives that are critical for addressing global challenges and harnessing new opportunities.”