Nigeria and other economies in Sub-Saharan Africa could face another 102 years before achieving full gender parity if the region continues to progress at its current pace, according to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2026.
The report said Sub-Saharan Africa has currently closed 68.8 per cent of its overall gender gap, placing the region sixth globally, but significant disparities remain across economic participation, political empowerment, education, and other areas.
While the report does not provide a Nigeria-specific gender parity score in the material reviewed, Nigeria is part of the Sub-Saharan African region covered by the WEF assessment.
The WEF report highlighted substantial differences among economies in the region, with Namibia closing 84.5 per cent of its gender gap, ranking fourth globally, while Chad closed 57.8 per cent, placing it among the lowest-ranked economies.
Since the WEF began tracking the gender gap in 2006, Sub-Saharan Africa’s overall gender parity score has improved by 6.0 percentage points.
The region’s strongest improvement has been recorded in Economic Participation and Opportunity, which has increased by 8.0 percentage points since 2006.
The improvement was driven in part by a 28.7 percentage-point increase in the representation of women among legislators, senior officials and managers, indicating greater participation by women in decision-making and senior professional positions.
The report also recorded an 18.7 percentage-point increase in female labour-force participation, while estimated earned-income parity improved by 16.4 percentage points during the period under review.
Despite the gains, the WEF said significant challenges remain in translating increased participation in the labour market into sustained economic advancement for women.
Political Empowerment has improved by 6.0 percentage points since 2006, supported largely by an 11.6 percentage-point increase in women’s parliamentary representation across the region.
However, Educational Attainment remains Sub-Saharan Africa’s weakest-performing gender-gap dimension, with more than 10 percentage points of the gap still outstanding despite improvements across its individual indicators.
The Health and Survival dimension, meanwhile, has remained broadly unchanged since 2006, according to the report.
The WEF said changing labour markets, technological developments and evolving patterns of global cooperation are increasingly influencing access to economic opportunities.
It noted that simply having access to employment is no longer sufficient to guarantee economic stability or upward mobility, as workers increasingly require productive, resilient and sustainable career paths.
Data from LinkedIn cited in the report showed that women’s share of the workforce increased from 39.9 per cent in 2015 to 41.8 per cent in June 2026.
Female representation in senior leadership roles also increased from 26.7 per cent to 29.6 per cent over the period.
However, the report found that women’s representation continues to decline sharply as seniority increases.
In 2026, women accounted for about 46 per cent of employees at entry level, but their representation fell to just 23 per cent in C-suite positions, highlighting what the report described through its data as a persistent leadership pipeline gap.
Women also remain underrepresented in positions that commonly serve as pathways to chief executive roles, including chief financial officer and chief operating officer positions.
The data further indicated that women’s hiring into both the overall workforce and senior leadership positions has stalled since 2022.
The report said early indications of decline raise concerns about whether some of the gains achieved in previous years can be sustained without stronger interventions by governments and employers.
At the global level, the WEF estimates that achieving complete gender parity would take approximately 120 years at the current rate of progress, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing economies worldwide.
Managing Director at the WEF, Saadia Zahidi, said gender parity remains achievable, noting that economies across different income levels had demonstrated progress.
She called on governments and employers to identify policies and practices that have proved effective and implement them more rapidly to accelerate progress.
For Nigeria and other economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, the regional findings highlight the continuing importance of expanding women’s participation in the labour market, improving access to leadership opportunities and closing persistent gaps in education, income and political representation.
