10 Best Countries for Working Women According to Glass Ceiling Index

Being a female owned Canadian call centre, equality is something that we strongly support and I wanted to explore how Canada compared internationally on this issue. I have featured how Canada compares on the world stage in posts like best country to live, smartest countries, the happiest countries, the  most peaceful countries, the friendliest countries, the most charitable countries, the best countries for quality of life, the best countries for business, the top countries for life expectancy, the best country for child well-being, the best countries for higher education, the most popular countries, the least corrupt countries, the countries with the best reputation, the best countries for ease of doing business, the best countries for starting a business, the best country for business, the best country for customer satisfaction, the most gay positive country, the best countries with the most competitive economies, the best countries for entrepreneurship, the most sustainable countries, the best countries to grow old, the best country brand, the best countries for business, the most sustainable countries, the most charitable countries, the most prosperous countries, the countries with the highest minimum wage, the safest countries, the best countries with the highest average salary and the best countries for social progress. Today we’ll be looking at the 10 best countries for working women according to the 2014 Glass Ceiling Index released by The Economist.

The Economist created the Glass Ceiling Index to highlight countries where women have the best chance of being treated equally in the workplace. Every country was scored based on a weighted average of the following nine indicators: higher education gap, labour-force participation, wage gap, share of senior manager who are women, women on company boards, child-care costs, paid maternity leave, share of GMAT candidates and women in parliament (government). Based on this data, the 10 best countries for working women, according to Glass Ceiling Index, are:

1. Norway – Score: 78.7. Previous ranking: 2
2. Sweden – Score: 78.1. Previous ranking: 3
3. Finland – Score: 77.1. Previous ranking: 7
4. Poland – Score: 71.5. Previous ranking: 9
5. New Zealand – Score: 69.4. Previous ranking: 1
6. France – Score: 67.7. Previous ranking: 11
7. Denmark – Score: 64.3. Previous ranking: 10
8. Hungary – Score: 62.1. Previous ranking: 14
9. Canada – Score: 61.8. Previous ranking: 4
10. Spain – Score: 61.0. Previous ranking: 6

The United States came in 17th with a score of 56.1; this was a fall of five places from its 12th place ranking in the 2013 Glass Ceiling Index.

It is often mentioned that educating a girl will have a larger impact on a community; so it is wonderful to see that the number of women who took their GMAT (business school entrance exam) increased five points to 43% over the last decade world wide.

Overall, it would seem that Nordic countries faired well on the list. “Yet even there women are paid less than men for similar work. In Finland and Sweden the gap is close to the OECD average of 15%, though in Norway it has fallen to 8%.” These countries also tend to have more female board members than their European counterparts.

The 2014 Glass Ceiling Index findings can serve to help women who are looking to relocate make an informed decision about their careers. Beyond that it should serve as a tool for business and governments to see where they can make improvements when it comes to women in the workforce. It saddens me to see that while great progress has been made there is still a long ways to go before women are truly equal in the workplace.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all our business decisions  and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.