Countries Where Women Are Thriving and Struggling | Best Countries | U.S. News – DeusNews
When women thrive, so too do countries, according to an index released Tuesday by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
The index, in its fourth edition, found that women seem to be thriving the most in Denmark and struggling the most in Afghanistan.
“Women’s inclusion, justice, and security are not just women’s issues,” Elena Ortiz, the report’s research manager and lead author, said in an email. “When women are doing well, everyone in society is doing well, and our data empirically back that up.”
The Women, Peace, and Security Index ranked women’s status in 177 countries according to three dimensions – inclusion, justice and security – as well as 13 indicators, such as women’s education, maternal mortality and intimate partner violence. Countries were placed into eight groups by geography or level of development and given a score between zero and one. Data was collected from several sources, including the United Nations, the World Bank and the Gallup World Poll.
Countries classified as “fragile states” were by far the worst performing, “highlighting how fragility disproportionately affects women and can magnify the disadvantages they face,” Ortiz added. In the 34 fragile states, 20% of women had experienced intimate partner violence and 60% lived near conflict on average, according to the report.
One of those fragile states, Afghanistan, fell last on the list. Since the United States’ withdrawal from the country in August 2021, the situation for women and girls in the nation has rapidly deteriorated.
“Afghan women wake up each day to no jobs, no education and no autonomy over their lives,” Torunn L. Tryggestad, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s Center for Gender, Peace and Security, said in a press release. “This report should serve as a wakeup call to world leaders that a nation of women is imprisoned.”
Rounding out the 10 worst countries for women were Yemen, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Burundi, Syria, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Somalia and Iraq.
Developed nations generally fared well in the ranking. Nordic nations in particular dominated the top 10 list, capturing five spots. Denmark, which has a reputation for gender equality in areas like the workforce, daycare and education, received the highest marks, followed by Switzerland, Sweden, Finland (tied), Iceland (tied), Luxembourg (tied), Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
That’s in line with the U.S. News Best Countries for Women rankings, drawn from the global survey responses of nearly 9,000 women. That list is topped by Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Women in the sub-Saharan Africa region suffer the worst statuses globally, followed by those in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the index. However, the United Arab Emirates bucks this trend, landing at No. 22 and beating out a handful of developing countries, among them the United States.
The U.S. barely made the top 40, dropping 16 positions from No. 21 in the report’s last edition to No. 37 this year.
Researchers noted that some of the data for the index predates the COVID-19 pandemic, which some suspect led to increased instances of violence against women.
