Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the World Economic Forum survey of the global gender gap for 2014 in which the United Kingdom fell to 26th place, behind Rwanda and the Philippines.

The UK’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap 2014 report is in part a reflection of rapid improvement from other countries. The UK also fares less well because of the measures used to inform the index; for example, economic participation and opportunity includes the difference in average yearly earnings of women and men, a measure that disadvantages the UK where many women choose to work part-time in order to balance family and work commitments. This measure also means the UK compares unfavourably to countries such as Rwanda and the Philippines where there are smaller differences in income between men and women but earnings are very much lower than in the UK.

Under this government, there are more women in work than ever before, more women-led business than ever before, and the gender pay gap, measured by hourly earnings, is the lowest since records began.