Australia in top 10 on gender equality

Nordic countries have retained their top rankings for gender equality with Australia and New Zealand making the top 10, the World Economic Forum said. Those that have succeeded best in narrowing the gap are Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.

These are followed by New Zealand (6), Canada (7), United Kingdom (8), Germany (9) and Australia (10), as countries that have made considerable progress in recent decades in removing obstacles to the full participation of women in their respective societies.

Economic giants China and the United States still lag far behind despite some progress, the Forum said on Wednesday. The WEF report measures the "gender gap" in four critical areas of inequality
between the sexes - economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival.

China climbed 17 places from the previous year but still ranked just 57th, with the
authors highlighting glaring inequalities in education, economic and political
participation.
The United States rose to 27 from 31 due to a higher number of women appointed to
positions of power, the report said.
Muslim countries had some of the worst ratings with Yemen at the bottom of the table
and Saudi Arabia just two places above at 128.
A United Nations report found earlier this year that women in Saudi Arabia are the
victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social
life.
Saudia Arabia is governed by Wahabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that imposes
almost complete separation of the sexes in the name of Sharia law.
As such, it is illegal for a woman to be in the company of a man who is not in her
immediate family.