Gender parity is advancing so why isn’t women’s influence keeping pace?

Key reasons to read this article

• Women are winning seats. So why do men still call the shots?
• Quotas have opened the door. What is keeping women from reaching the top?
• Is the leadership gap simply about time?
• When women lack decision-making power, who will pay the price?
• What happens when the money and institutions that support women’s equality begin to disappear?

The world has achieved significant strides in gender equality: more girls in school, women joining the workforce in record numbers, and many countries electing women to positions in high office. The education gap has almost closed at 96.9%, while overall parity has reached 69.2%, the highest level in 20 years, as revealed by the Global Gender Gap Report 2026 from the World Economic Forum (WEF).

However, women make up just 39% of the global workforce, a figure that has reportedly remained unchanged since 1990, and they earn approximately 20% less than men, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Stagnation, downward trend

The power that women have for decision-making has experienced slower progress, with the WEF index indicating that political empowerment is only 22.1% in 2026, a slight decrease from last year.

In governments, women hold 22.4% of cabinet positions, and just 28 countries are led by a female head of state or government, based on data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women. The number of women serving as the speaker of a parliament decreased to 19.9% in January 2026, down by almost 4% compared to the same period in 2025. UN Women has warned that if the current trend continues, parliaments will not achieve gender parity until 2064.

In the business sector, women occupy 23.3% of the seats on company boards globally but hold only 8.4% of Chairman roles and 6% of Chief Executive positions, according to Deloitte’s 2024 report.

These statistics indicate an uneven pattern of progress whereby improvements in education and representation have not translated into equivalent gains in economic opportunity or leadership. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum’s 2026 Global Gender Gap Report concluded that it will take another 120 years to ensure full gender parity.

“Equality without power is not equality at all”

Having women represented in decision-making bodies does not guarantee their influence. What matters is not only how many women are appointed by an institution, but also which positions they hold, what authority those positions carry and whether they can contribute to decision-making. The IPU’s Plan of Action for Gender Parity in Parliaments identifies three dimensions of parity: numbers, influence and power, and culture.

The gap is particularly visible in government. The IPU and UN Women’s 2026 map has found that women are frequently assigned positions related to human rights, gender equality and social protection, while men dominate roles in defense, home affairs, justice, all areas of economic affairs, health and education. About 90% of defense ministers and more than 80% of finance ministers are men, and women hold 19% of ministerial posts in economic departments.

The interests that women show do not explain this focus because the women leaders who spoke at the 2025 UN General Assembly debated increased security and defense, and economy and finance almost as often as men did.

Parliamentary committees show a similar pattern. According to the IPU, women chair about a third of standing committees (32.5%), but beyond gender equality and youth committees that share falls to 22.1%.

On company boards, 71.8% of publicly traded companies have women directors on their boards, but they hold less decision-making power than their share of seats suggests, and in larger companies that figure is 82.8%. Women directors are more likely to hold better university degrees than men, but are less likely to have been Chief Executives.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous defines this bluntly: “Equality without power is not equality at all.”

Why the gender gap persists

Several overlapping factors help to explain why representation and influence continue to diverge.

Quotas bring women into decision-making bodies but do not determine who gets the most powerful jobs. In France and Norway, where board gender quotas have been in place since 2011 and 2003, respectively, women hold 44% and 43.5% of board seats but Deloitte’s 2024 report found that fewer than 13% of women directors in either country had progressed to chairing the board.

This partly reflects the criteria used to select leaders. Deloitte notes that companies often prefer board members who have prior CEO experience. As women remain under-represented as Chief Executives, this preference narrows the pool of women who can be considered for this position.

Progression in organizations depends on more than mere qualifications. Herminia Ibarra of the London Business School found that women are less likely to receive the high-stakes assignments required to reach the C-suite, and that the lack of a sponsor, a senior colleague who actively advocates for someone’s promotion, is the main barrier. A McKinsey and LeanIn study found that 31% of entry-level women in the United States and Canada had a sponsor compared to 45% of men. Parliaments show a similar pattern in who is given the most powerful committee posts.

Time explains part of the gap. But time cannot be the entire answer. Women already make up 51.2% of judges but only 19.6% of Chief Justices. According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, gender equality is a question of power, and women remain grossly under-represented in governments and boardrooms.

What the gap means in low- and middle-income countries

In low- and middle-income countries, decisions about public spending, infrastructure and essential services have direct consequences for women’s lives. Women and girls are the main water collectors in 70% of households that have no water on the premises. Nearly two-thirds of countries give women little or no legal protection regarding their land rights. About 326 million women and girls live without electricity, while women hold 12% of cabinet posts associated with energy, natural resources and mining.

In sub-Saharan Africa, only 36.8% of married women have full say over their own reproductive health decisions, further illustrating the limits on women’s autonomy.

Nigeria clearly evidences the problem. Women now hold 19 of the 469 seats in the National Assembly, which is down from 36 women in 2007, according to the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre. The Special Seats Bill aimed to earmark more seats for women, but this failed to win the required votes in the House of Representatives in 2022.

The resources available to support women’s participation in politics are also under pressure. Funding for women’s rights organizations fell by 28% between 2023 and 2024, and bilateral aid targeting gender equality objectives fell by 13%, reaching its lowest level since 2021. Over the last two years, one in three national gender equality bodies have lost institutional power, and one in four have had their operating budgets cut.

In a 2026 UN Women survey of 855 women-led organizations in 52 crisis-affected countries, 58% reported a reduction in women’s participation in community decision-making.

Standing for office can also carry substantial financial and personal risks. In a UN Women study across 13 countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, about eight in 10 women candidates for parliament experienced violence during campaigns. The cost of running for office can, in some cases, exceed 100 times the national average per capita income.

The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2024 report found that women hold 64% of the legal rights that men have, and that countries have put in place less than 40% of the systems needed to enforce these rights.

What could close the parity gap?

The evidence points to a shift in priorities, not only making sure women are represented on decision-making bodies, but also ensuring they hold the power to make decisions.

The Gender Snapshot highlights that when women do hold real power, outcomes improve across all the Sustainable Development Goals.

There is evidence that women’s participation can change outcomes in some areas. The Council on Foreign Relations has found that peace agreements negotiated involving women are 35% more likely to last for at least 15 years.

“Parity is a moral imperative,” IPU President Tulia Ackson has said. She added that it is also a smart thing to do, because institutions identify bias and earn more public trust when women are present and influential at every level.