The UAE was ranked 1st across the Arab countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 (PDF, 2 MB). Additionally, the UAE was ranked 1st globally in 5 of the report’s sub-indicators, which are:

• enrolment in primary education
• enrolment in secondary education
• enrolment in tertiary education
• sex ratio at birth
• women in parliament.

The report adds that the UAE is the regional leader in the sub-index with a political parity score of 37.2 per cent, ranking 32nd globally.

The UAE was ranked 13th globally and 1st regionally in the Gender Inequality Index of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2025.

The UNDP publishes the Human Development Report annually. Gender Inequality Index is a part of the report that measures gender balance across the following 3 dimensions:

1. reproductive health
2. empowerment
3. labour market.

The index ranks countries across these 5 indicators:

1. maternal mortality ratio
2. adolescent birth rate
3. share of seats in the parliament
4. population with at least some secondary education
5. labour force participation rates.

Read the:

• United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2025 (PDF, 2 MB) 
• United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2024 (PDF, 945 KB) 
• United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2022 (PDF, 1 MB).