Egypt fell further behind in the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap Report 2025,” coming 139th out of 148 countries—placing it among the world’s 10 worst performers in terms of gender parity.
The Global Gender Gap index released on June 12, 2025, is based on four axes: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
Egypt’s very low ranking is primarily driven by extremely low female labor force participation (estimated below 20%) and substantial wage disparities. Beyond economic participation, Egypt also ranks very poorly in political empowerment, demonstrating minimal female representation in parliament, ministerial, and executive leadership roles due to deeply entrenched social and institutional barriers.
While the country has made notable progress in educational attainment, achieving near parity in basic literacy and enrollment, these gains have not sufficiently translated into economic empowerment. In contrast, health and survival is Egypt’s best-performing dimension, aligning with global trends where this gap is largely closed, the report shows.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) described the result as unsurprising, attributing it to decades of economic policies that marginalize women and ignore the needs of most Egyptians.
“While the state continues to claim its commitment to women’s empowerment and even celebrates so-called ‘achievements,’ all statistical indicators, reports by Egypt’s international partner institutions, and women’s lived reality point instead to a worsening crisis year after year,” EIPR said.
The rights group’s analysis highlighted Egypt’s severely poor standing even when compared to regional, continental, and economically similar countries. Egypt ranked 11th out of 14 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, 34th out of 41 African countries, and economically, 38th out of 40 lower-middle-income nations—outperforming only Guinea and Pakistan.
Egypt ranked 11th out of 14 MENA countries in the "Global Gender Gap Report 2025."EIPR argued these figures stand “in stark contradiction to the Egyptian state’s narrative of its accomplishments in women’s rights over the past decade, and its celebration of strategies such as the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030 or the Egyptian Family Development Program. Any improvements in select indicators have failed to translate into a broader, meaningful enhancement of women’s overall status.”
Launched on International Women’s Day (March 8), 2017, Egypt’s women’s empowerment strategy aims to improve women’s political, economic, and social inclusion, while ensuring their protection and working to change societal attitudes. The WEF report suggests no clear impact.
Restrictive and Discriminatory Practices
The results came as no surprise to EIPR. “They reflect the cumulative impact of years of economic policies that have marginalized women in Egypt,” it stated
EIPR also criticized “unconstitutional and unlawful” policies, such as requiring low-income women to obtain prior travel authorization. It also cited the exclusion of pregnant and postpartum women who passed the “30,000 teachers” hiring exam.
In political empowerment, Egypt ranked 101st out of 148, with limited female representation in ministerial, parliamentary, and senior leadership roles.
To reverse these trends, EIPR called for a fundamental overhaul of labor policies to ensure gender equality, eliminate discriminatory laws, remove arbitrary restrictions like travel consent and hiring exclusions based on pregnancy or weight, and enforce minimum wage protections.
They also urged swift passage of a comprehensive equality and anti-discrimination law to address structural bias, guarantee equal hiring and promotion opportunities, and establish clear accountability mechanisms.
