No Country in the World Has Achieved Legal Equality Between Men and Women

The 2026 UN Women report, released on the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8, establishes an unambiguous finding: none of the 193 United Nations member states have achieved complete legal equality between men and women. On average globally, women possess only 64% of men's legal rights. The UN Secretary-General's report documents the progress made since the 1995 Beijing Declaration, as well as areas where advancements are stagnating or regressing.

64% of Men's Legal Rights on Average Globally

The 64% figure comes from the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law index, which measures legal discrimination in 190 economies across eight indicators: mobility, work, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and retirement. In 2024, only 14 economies achieved a perfect score of 100 out of 100, all located in Western Europe or Oceania (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden). [1]

The global average of 64% masks considerable disparities. High-income OECD economies achieve an average score of 95.2. Sub-Saharan Africa stands at 62.9. The Middle East and North Africa are at 53.2. South Asia is at 63.7. These figures measure formal law, not practice: a country may have egalitarian laws on paper while tolerating systemic discrimination in their application.

54% of Countries Do Not Define Rape Based on Consent

The UN Women report identifies several areas where legal gaps remain gaping. The first concerns sexual violence. Of the 190 economies analyzed, 54% do not have a legal definition of rape based on the absence of consent. In these countries, the law requires proof of physical force, threat, or resistance from the victim to qualify an act as rape. The absence of consent alone is not sufficient. [2]

This situation has direct consequences on reporting and conviction rates. According to the World Health Organization, one in three women worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, but reporting rates remain below 10% in most countries. When the law requires proof of force, victims who do not have physical traces of violence are discouraged from filing complaints.

In Europe, the EU Directive on violence against women, adopted in 2024, has not succeeded in imposing a harmonized definition of rape based on consent. Several member states, including France (which reformed its definition in 2024), have moved forward individually, but others are resisting.

44% of Countries Do Not Mandate Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value

The second area of deficiency concerns pay. According to the World Bank, 44% of economies analyzed have no legislation mandating equal pay between men and women for work of equal value. The nuance is important: "work of equal value" is a broader concept than "equal work." It implies that two different jobs of comparable value (e.g., a nurse and a technician) must be compensated equivalently. [1]

The global gender pay gap is estimated at 20% by the International Labour Organization. This gap is broken down into an "explained" portion (differences in sector, seniority, working hours) and an "unexplained" portion (direct or indirect discrimination). The unexplained portion accounts for about 60% of the total gap in OECD countries.

Countries that have adopted pay transparency measures show results. Iceland, which made pay equity certification mandatory for companies with more than 25 employees in 2018, reduced its pay gap from 16% to 10.2% in six years. The United Kingdom, which has required the publication of pay gaps since 2017, saw the median gap decrease from 18.4% to 14.3% between 2017 and 2024. [3]

Unpaid Work: 4 Hours and 25 Minutes Per Day for Women

The UN Women report documents a third area of inequality often invisible in economic statistics: unpaid work. Women dedicate an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes per day to domestic tasks and care for loved ones (children, the elderly, the sick), compared to 1 hour and 23 minutes for men. This gap of 3 hours per day, or 21 hours per week, represents the equivalent of a part-time, unpaid job.

The ILO estimates the economic value of women's unpaid work at $10.8 trillion per year globally, or 13% of global GDP. This work is not accounted for in GDP statistics, making it invisible in economic debates. Women who reduce their paid working hours to undertake these tasks suffer cumulative career penalties: lower wages, delayed promotions, reduced pensions.

Countries that have invested in childcare services show results. Sweden, which dedicates 1.6% of its GDP to care services (compared to 0.4% on average in the OECD), has a female employment rate of 79%, one of the highest in the world. Quebec, which introduced $5-a-day daycare in 1997 (now $8.85), saw the employment rate of mothers with children under 5 increase by 14 percentage points in ten years.

Progress Since 1995 is Real but Insufficient

The UN Women report does not limit itself to stating the gaps. It also documents the progress made since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, considered the international framework for gender equality.

In education, parity has been achieved or surpassed in primary and secondary education in the majority of countries. The global rate of girls' enrollment in secondary education rose from 45% in 1995 to 78% in 2023. In higher education, women are now the majority in 60% of countries. [2]

In political participation, the percentage of women in national parliaments has increased from 11.3% in 1995 to 26.9% in 2024. The number of women heads of state or government has risen from 12 in 1995 to 28 in 2024. These figures remain far from parity, but the trend is upward.

In health, maternal mortality has decreased by 34% between 2000 and 2020. Access to modern contraception has increased in all regions of the world. Women's life expectancy exceeds men's in all countries except four.

The Retreat of Reproductive Rights in the United States and Eastern Europe

The report also identifies areas of regression. The most visible concerns reproductive rights. Since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, 14 U.S. states have banned or severely restricted access to voluntary termination of pregnancy. In Poland, a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling banned abortion for fetal malformation, reducing legal cases to a few hundred per year in a country of 38 million inhabitants. [2]

These regressions are not isolated. The report notes a global trend of instrumentalizing women's rights by conservative and nationalist movements. In Hungary, Russia, and several Latin American countries, pro-natalist policies are accompanied by restrictions on access to contraception and abortion.

Political Representation: 26.9% Women in Parliaments, 13% Heads of State

The UN Women report also documents inequalities in political representation. In 2024, women held 26.9% of seats in national parliaments worldwide. This figure has more than doubled since 1995 (11.3%), but remains far from parity. At this rate, parliamentary parity will only be achieved in 2063.

Regional disparities are considerable. Nordic countries show an average of 45%. Latin America reaches 35%, driven by parity laws adopted in Mexico, Argentina, and Bolivia. Sub-Saharan Africa stands at 27%, with champions like Rwanda (61%, the highest rate in the world). The Middle East and North Africa remain at 18%. South Asia at 19%.

In terms of executive leadership, 28 women were heads of state or government in 2024, out of 193 UN member countries, or 14.5%. This figure is up (12 in 1995), but progress is slow. No woman has led China, Russia, the United States, or Japan. In France, no woman has been elected president of the Republic.

Countries that have adopted legislative quotas show superior results. Among the 50 countries with the highest rates of female representation, 38 have a quota system (legislative or voluntary). Quotas do not guarantee the real influence of elected women, but they change the composition of assemblies and, gradually, political norms.

300 Years at the Current Pace to Achieve Full Equality

The UN Women report estimates that at the current pace of progress, it will take approximately 300 years to achieve full legal equality between men and women worldwide. This projection, based on the speed of reform observed between 2015 and 2024, is intentionally striking. It aims to highlight the gap between the commitments made by governments (particularly the Sustainable Development Goals, of which SDG 5 concerns gender equality) and the actual pace of reforms. [2]

The goal of SDG 5 is to achieve gender equality by 2030. With four years to go, none of the indicators are on track to be met globally. Funding for gender equality programs remains insufficient: according to the OECD, official development assistance dedicated to gender equality as a principal objective represents only 5.6% of total bilateral aid.

France: 14th Country Worldwide for Legal Equality, 37th for Pay Gap

France is among the 14 economies that achieve a perfect score of 100 on the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law index. Its legal framework contains no formal discrimination between men and women in terms of mobility, work, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, or retirement.

However, legal equality does not automatically translate into real equality. The gender pay gap in France is 15.4% in full-time equivalent terms, according to INSEE (2022 data). When accounting for part-time work, which affects 28% of women compared to 8% of men, the income gap reaches 24%. France ranks 37th among OECD countries for this indicator.

The Rixain Law of 2021 mandates quotas for women in the governing bodies of large companies: 30% by 2027, 40% by 2030. In 2024, women represented 46% of the members of the boards of directors of CAC 40 companies, but only 23% of executive committees. The gap between governance and operational management illustrates the difference between formal equality and effective equality.

Data Exists, Laws Are Lacking

The 2026 UN Women report is not a militant document. It is a factual inventory of the gaps between men's and women's rights in 190 economies, based on measurable indicators and verifiable sources. Its value lies in the precision of the data: each figure is sourced, each comparison is documented, each progress and each regression is quantified.

The conclusion drawn is that the problem is not a lack of data. Legal discrimination is identified, measured, and published. The problem is the lack of political will to correct it. The 14 countries that achieve a perfect score show that legal equality is technically achievable. The other 176 show that it is not a political priority.