WEF warns of possible new gender gaps in advanced technologies

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New gender gaps in advanced technologies may emerge and there remains much to be done to achieve gender parity, according to a report released by World Economic Forum (WEF) on Tuesday.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2018, a report measuring the relative gaps between women and men in four key areas including health, education, economy and politics was published by WEF on December 18.

The report calls for urgent action, as gender gaps could emerge in some leading technologies, such as artificial intelligence, where female talent is already scarce and cannot afford to be deprived of women's talent.

Compared with last year, the global average (population-weighted) distance completed to parity is flat in 2018, at 68 percent.

VCG Photo

Although there have been some improvements in wage equality this year compared to 2017, women are more underrepresented in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.

The report said the largest gender disparity is on political empowerment (77.1 percent) among four subindexes. Across the 149 countries assessed, there are only 17 that currently have women as heads of state and the average proportion of women ministers and parliamentarians globally is merely 18 percent and 24 percent respectively.

The report predicted the most challenging gender gaps to close are the economic and political empowerment dimensions, which will take 202 and 107 years to close separately.

Iceland is the world's most gender-equal country, followed by Norway, Sweden and Finland, according to the report.