The Global Gender Gap 2017 report from the World Economic Forum ranks 144 countries on their progress toward gender parity across four thematic dimensions—economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment—and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups.

The rankings are intended to raise global awareness of the issues that gender disparities cause, as well as the benefits that may be realized by closing them. The rankings' methodology and quantitative analysis are designed to serve as a foundation for developing effective approaches to close gender inequalities. Since its inception in 2006, the Index's methodology has remained consistent, offering a solid foundation for cross-country and time-series analysis.

According to the research, the East Asia and Pacific area ranks in the center of the Global Gender Disparity Index, with an average persisting gender gap of just under 32 percent. The region is home to two of the overall Index's top ten performers, New Zealand and the Philippines, both of which have closed over 79 percent of their total gender gap—far ahead of the region's next best-placed country—while the lower half of the region's economies have yet to cross the 70% threshold.

Three of the five most improved countries on the Health and Survival subindex in the last decade are from the area. Only three of the region's 18 countries—Mongolia, Cambodia, and Japan—have completely bridged the gap. East Asia and the Pacific, in fact, is the lowest-ranked region internationally on this subindex, with a regional average of just under 94 percent. Only two nations in the area have completely bridged the gender gap in educational attainment, one of which is the Philippines.

Yemen tops the GGGI 2017