--- title: Gender Inequality: Map Shows Places With the Least Equality for Women description: The United States is #42. canonical: https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/ author: Jessica Roy article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-01-28T20:40:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:06:58.987Z og:title: Gender Inequality: Map Shows Places With the Least Equality for Women og:description: The United States is #42. og:url: https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gender Inequality: Map Shows Places With the Least Equality for Women twitter:description: The United States is #42. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Map Shows Just How Far the World Has to Go to Reach Gender Equality by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Jan 28, 2014 8:40 PM UTC by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Jan 28, 2014 8:40 PM UTC Based on stats culled from a [report](https://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-4-Gender-Inequality-Index/pq34-nwq7) from the United Nations Development Programme, the below map highlights each country’s [Gender Inequality Index](http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/gii), a figure calculated by analyzing factors such as the maternal mortality rate, number of seats women hold in government bodies and the labor force participation rate. The lower the number, the better gender equality each country has. 2012’s research found that the Netherlands was the country with the highest rate of gender equality, while Yemen had the lowest. Check out the below map, plus the 10 countries with the best gender parity. via chartsbin.com 1\. Netherlands 2\. Sweden 3\. Denmark 4\. Switzerland 5\. Norway 6\. Finland 7\. Germany 8\. Slovenia 9\. France 10\. Iceland ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/"},"headline":"This Map Shows Just How Far the World Has to Go to Reach Gender Equality","datePublished":"2014-01-28T20:40:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:06:58.987Z","description":"The United States is #42.","url":"https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Living","women","gender equality","United Nations","U.N.","World"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessica Roy","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3131/this-map-shows-just-how-far-the-world-has-to-go-to-reach-gender-equality/","name":"This Map Shows Just How Far the World Has to Go to Reach Gender Equality"}}]}] ```