This Country Is the Worst Place to Work for Women

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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This Country Is the Worst Place to Work for Women

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Women make less money than men do in the same job in virtually every nation in the world. In the United States, the figure has been about 70% for years, with no sign that it will change soon. Additionally, the disparity holds true in almost all industries, although women do better in some than others. The United States is not the worst nation by this measure, according to recent research, but it is nearer the bottom than the top.

SmartSurvey reviewed employee engagement data for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) counties. Among the primary factors considered were the gender wage gap by nation, women in the workforce and maternal and parental leave. It also considered how hard it is for women to start new businesses, which takes into account the average cost to register a business and the number of days to start a new business.

Twenty-seven countries were ranked on a scale on which 10.0 is the highest grade possible. Scandinavian nations did the best. Norway ranked first with a score of 8.54. Denmark was next with a score of 8.26, followed by Finland at 8.16. These were the only countries with a rank over 8.0.

Two nations have scores under 4.0. Mexico did the worst at 3.41. The second from the bottom, South Korea, had a score of 3.89.
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The United States did not do particularly well. It ranked 18th out of 27 with a score of 6.50.

These are the best and worst countries for women to work:

  • Norway, 8.54
  • Denmark, 8.26
  • Finland, 8.16
  • New Zealand, 7.99
  • Sweden, 7.97
  • Portugal, 7.67
  • France, 7.65
  • Canada, 7.56
  • Greece, 7.46
  • Slovakia, 7.39
  • Australia, 7.36
  • United Kingdom, 7.31
  • Belgium, 7.24
  • Iceland, 6.98
  • Czech Republic, 6.74
  • Germany, 6.55
  • Switzerland, 6.55
  • United States, 6.50
  • Chile, 6.42
  • Austria, 6.18
  • Israel, 6.07
  • Italy, 5.43
  • Japan, 5.40
  • Colombia, 5.24
  • Poland, 4.41
  • South Korea, 3.89
  • Mexico, 3.41

Click here to see the 28 most popular jobs held by women.
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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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