Best countries for working women

International Women’s Day statistics

As International Women’s Day (IWD) approaches on March 8, we’ve compared 16 countries across 10 metrics to determine which is the best nation for working women.

A lot of IWD discussion centers on the gender pay gap. This ranking system also accounts for broader considerations that influence whether a country is a good place to work.

We’ve included such financial metrics as the percentage of savings women have for retirement compared to men, as well as quality-of-life measures like paid holiday leave and the average number of additional hours women spend on household work compared to men.

We sourced data from a range of government, private industry and prominent media sites, then ranked the countries best to worst for each metric on a scale of 1 to 16. The fewer points the country received overall, the more favorable the country for women who want to work.

Women account for only 6% of CEOs in S&P 100 companies

While women make up roughly 51.7% of the US workforce, only six women sit atop companies in the S&P 100 Index.

The number of female CEOs in the US is on par with those holding the top position at companies in the UK Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index and ahead of countries like New Zealand, which has two female CEOs at the top of its Stock Exchange 50 Index. As it stands, no women hold the top job in Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange 60 Index.

Name your daughter Alison if you want her to grow up to be CEO

If you want to give your daughter a leg up in the world of finance, consider naming her Alison, according to Finder’s analysis of the names of global CEOs. Alison is the only woman’s name with multiple entries, accounting for 14% of female CEOs in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

However, no Alison’s are CEO at S&P 100 companies … yet.

Not enough women in top jobs

While Alisons make up 14% of all female CEOs, women accounted for only 5.13% of CEOs in those countries. In fact, there are more CEOs named David or Dave (5.87%) in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand than there are women holding CEO roles.

So how does the US rank?

The US ranks poorly across the board for equality between genders, ranking in the bottom half for all metrics.

US’s rankings across every metric

Metric	Rank
Vacation leave	14
Job security	10
Extra household hours compared to men	8
Cost of living	10
Labor force participation rate	11
Gender wage gap	15
Female representation in boardrooms	11
Average working hours	15
Maternity leave	16
Retirement funds compared to men	15

The lowest ranking in the US

The US ranks dead last among 16 countries in one category — maternity leave — and second to last in a further three: retirement funds compared to men, average working hours and the gender wage gap.

It’s not hard to see why the US takes last place for maternity leave. It’s the only country on the list that doesn’t require paid parental time off. On average, women in the other 15 nations get 49.11 weeks in paid parental leave, the average heavily boosted by Finland, which offers 161 weeks of paid parental leave.

Highest rankings in the US

The US cracks the top 10 once across the 16 countries we analyzed, coming in at No. 8 for its top-ranked extra household hours compared to men. We found that on average, women do 1.6 more hours of household work a day than men do, which is slightly above the average of 1.45 hours across countries.

We’ll have what they’re having, thanks!

It’s clear Scandinavian countries are doing something right, taking out four of the top five rankings overall. According to data from the 36-member OECD, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland all rank well for maternity leave based on the total amount of paid time off for new moms and dads.

While it isn’t accounted for in the rankings, some Scandinavian countries provide additional bonuses. For instance, new parents in Finland receive a maternity kit from the government that includes all the clothes and supplies they need to welcome and look after their new addition to the family. Talk about a baby bonus!

Scandinavian countries also tend to report the smallest disparity between men and women when it comes to unpaid household chores.

To rank the best countries to live in as a working woman, we selected 16 countries commonly cited in Google as the best countries for women. We sourced data on 10 metrics: average participation rate in the labor force, cost of living, average gender pay gap, total female representation on boards, average difference women have saved in their retirement funds compared to men, average working hours per week, maternity leave benefits, job security and total amount of vacation leave. We scored each country on the 10 metrics, giving them a score from 1 (best score) to 16 (worst score). We then combined scores for each country. Four data points were missing — two for Iceland and two for Singapore — and so we used a drop system, whereby we excluded a country’s two worst scores from their overall score. For Iceland and Singapore, we disqualified metrics with the missing data points. With the best eight scores combined, we ranked the country with the lowest total score as best and the country with the highest total score as worst. Sources for the 10 metrics include the World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Tech Republic, Statistics Canada, Business Insider, the Straits Times, Catalyst.org, Women’s Agenda, Scoop, Human Resources Online, the Copenhagen Post, the Irish Times, HuffPost, Kela (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland), the Singapore Ministry of Manpower, Vanguard and Prudential Financial.
- To rank the countries based on maternity leave benefits, we sourced data from the OECD on the total amount of paid maternity and parental leave in 2016. We sourced data for Singapore from the Singapore Ministry of Manpower. In New Zealand, the maternity policy has changed in the time since the data was last updated, so we sourced data from the New Zealand Library of Congress.
- For the average weekly working hours, we found the average working hours women complete each week as reported by the OECD, StatCan and the Singapore Ministry of Manpower. Given there is no gender breakdown available for Singapore, we used the average for both genders.
- Job security is based on the percentage of workers at risk of losing their job in each country.
- To rank the countries based on household work, we sourced data from the OECD on the average number of hours spent on household work for both men and women. We then ranked countries based on the difference between hours for men and women.
- We calculated holiday leave based on the minimum number of public holidays and annual leave days for each country.

For all media inquiries, please contact:

Richard Laycock, Insights editor and senior content marketing manager

E: uspr@finder.com

Thank you for your feedback!

Written by

Richard Laycock

Lead Editor & Insights Editor

Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based lead editor & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio

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How the US stacks up for working women

Which country would you want to work in?

International Women’s Day statistics

Women account for only 6% of CEOs in S&P 100 companies

Name your daughter Alison if you want her to grow up to be CEO

Not enough women in top jobs

So how does the US rank?

US’s rankings across every metric

The lowest ranking in the US

Highest rankings in the US

We’ll have what they’re having, thanks!

For all media inquiries, please contact:

Richard Laycock

More guides on Finder

Ask a question

How the US stacks up for working women

Which country would you want to work in?

International Women’s Day statistics

Women account for only 6% of CEOs in S&P 100 companies

Name your daughter Alison if you want her to grow up to be CEO

Not enough women in top jobs

So how does the US rank?

US’s rankings across every metric

The lowest ranking in the US

Highest rankings in the US

We’ll have what they’re having, thanks!

General methodology

Metric-specific methodology

For all media inquiries, please contact:

Richard Laycock

More guides on Finder

Ask a question

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