NZ v Switzerland: how they fare on Women, Peace & Security

Crunch time for all teams in Group A today as they face off for their final matches to find out who progresses to the next stage. Off the field, Switzerland leads New Zealand on the Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS) being 6^th in the rankings (Index value: 0.898), putting Switzerland 3^rd among those at the Women’s World Cup. New Zealand is 13^th on the WPS (Index value: 0..873) putting it at 9^th among those at the World Cup.

I looked at elements of New Zealand’s score in my previous blog on digging deeper. But looking at its opponent today: Switzerland scored very high in financial inclusion: 98.9%. The country that did not give women the vote in federal elections til 1971 (and one canton held out til 1990 before allowing women to vote in local elections) – Switzerland increased its share of women in Parliamentary seats from 29.3% to 39% from 2017 to 2021. This was still well below highest scoring NZ at 48.3%. Switzerland scored relatively low in the absence of legal discrimination against women – 85.6% compared to Canada’s 100%.

But the most interesting statistic between the two countries is that women’s perception of community safety in Switzerland rose from 79.7% to 81.9% between 2017 and 2021, while New Zealand dropped to a low 50.3%. Switzerland also topped the group of developed countries for lowest levels of physical or sexual violence committed by an intimate partner, at 2%, while New Zealand’s level was 4%.