For the past 13 years, The Economist has published an annual "glass ceiling index," comparing the working conditions for women across the 29 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international organization that helps develop social, economic, and environmental policies.
The index is based on 10 measures, all of which speak to women's ability to thrive in the workplace, including data on the gender wage gap, labor-force participation, higher education, paid parental leave, percentage of women in political power, and more. They drop the list every year ahead of International Women's Day, and we combed through all the charts for 2024 so you don't have to.
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Dying to see where your favorite countries ranked, and how things are looking for ladies around the world? Here's a peek at the top 20 (yes, there are some ties!):
The Best Places To Be A Working Woman In 2025
- Sweden
- Iceland
- Finland
- Norway
- France
- New Zealand
- Portugal
- Spain
- Denmark
- Australia
- Belgium
- Austria
- Poland
- Britain
- Canada
- Italy
- Slovakia
- Ireland
- Greece
- USA
Surprised by anything you see? Here are some of our main takeaways, after diving deep into the data:
- Nordic countries always do well in this ranking, and this year was no different (just look at that top 4). The Economist attributes this to policies in the region that benefit gender equality and working parents. Love that for them!
- Across the 29 countries, median wages were still 11.4% lower for women than they were for men. Anyone still wanna argue about whether or not there's a wage gap?
- 45% of women from countries in the OECD had university degrees, compared to 36.9% of men. Despite this, labor-force participation remains lower for working-age women (66.6%) than men (81%).
- The USA is particularly behind when it comes to parental leave and childcare costs, which—surprise, surprise—has a significant effect on women's participation in the workforce. "It is the only rich country that does not provide any nationally mandated parental leave, and child-care expenses exceed 30% of average wages," according to The Economist.
- Women are gaining more representation in boardrooms and political arenas. Case in point: OECD women held 33% of company board seats in 2024 (up from 21%), and the amount of women in government seats hit an all-time high of 34%.
Overall, there is a lot of progress to celebrate, and we'll take any excuse to raise our glasses to the girlies! But it's also clear there's plenty of work that still needs to be done, especially in the US, to make the workforce more equitable for women. So...anyone want to move to Scandinavia?!
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.
