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2019 SDG Gender Index rankings

By July 15, 2019 December 3rd, 2020 No Comments

MENA is the highest ranking region in the world on restricting women’s usage of land.

With an average regional index score of 60.8, the Middle East and North Africa ranks fourth among the five regions covered by the SDG Gender Index. No country in the region comes within 23 points of full gender equality as measured by the index.

Women’s ability to own, use, inherit, and bequeath land is critical to their ability to build assets and have financial security. In countries where women lack full property rights, they are less likely to hold leadership positions in local businesses and are more likely to fall under the national poverty line after becoming divorced or widowed.

Likewise, women’s ability to participate equally in the workforce is linked to their agency, household decision-making power, financial wellbeing, and physical safety in the workplace.

In the 2019 SDG Gender Index, the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest regional scores in the world on both of two measures of women’s equality under the law: 8d: Extent to which the country has laws mandating women’s workplace equality (regional average 52.7 ) and 1c: The extent to which laws afford women and men equal and secure access to land use, control and ownership (score) (regional average 59.1).

Indicator 1c measures equality in property ownership across five dimensions: who can legally administer marital property, valuation of non monetary contributions, equal ownership rights to immovable property, sons’ and daughters’ equal rights to inherit assets, and female and male surviving spouses’ rights to inherit assets.

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Written by Equal Measures 2030
Image: Heba Khalifa / Plan International
Publication date: July 15, 2019

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