Costa Rica is ranked in the 32nd position out of 144 countries in the 2016 Global Gender Gap Report.

This index evaluates the gap between man and women in different fields: economic, education, political empowerment, health and life expectancy.

Costa Rica scored 0.736, with 2 being the maximum gender equality, the country went up 6 positions in comparison to 2015.

Costa Rica ranked 105 in Economic participation and opportunity, 30 in Education Attainment, 62 in Health and Survival, and 20 in Political Empowerment.

The low ranking in economic participation obeys to the considerable gap in the income received by men and women (wage equality for similar work), which is of close to $40 and $20 respectively.

The positive ranking in the category of Political Empowerment obeys to the active participation of women in Congress and the different Ministries of the Central Government.

Iceland is ranked number 1, Finland number 2 and Norway came in third position. Nicaragua holds the best ranking in the Latin America and Caribbean region with an overall rank of 10, followed by Bolivia positioned in the 23rd slot. Canada earned position 35 while the USA is ranked 45.

The Global Gender Gap Index reveals that all countries can do more to close the gender gap, in 2016 no country had closed less than 50% of their overall gender gap.

According to this report carried out by the World Economic Forum the wage equality won’t be a reality until 2186, 170 years from now. The difference in salaries among men and women reached 59%.