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NZ turns the Tables on Norway again: Wins on Women’s Status across Three Global Indexes

I swear I did not cook the books nor fiddle the stats, nor guess the outcome before analysis.

On the eve of the final games in the Women’s World Cup, I thought I would crunch the numbers for three different global indexes measuring women’s status and participation in society, and - on average - New Zealand tops all 32 nations that competed at the WWC. If you’ve seen earlier postings, you may remember Norway came out on top on the global Women Peace and Security Index (WPS Index) which Ive used as my main measure of women’s inclusion, justice, and security.

Since then, I’ve found an updated (2023) Global Gender Gap Index (GGG Index) put out by the World Economic Forum. This measures gender-based gaps across four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment, across

Finally, the US-based Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) puts out the Women's Workplace Equality Index which measures formal legal obstacles to women’s economic participation around the world, recognising that formal legal equality is a critical first step to closing the gap between women and men.

SO, crunching the numbers putting all the indexes on a scale from 0.000 to 1.000, then averaging them, New Zealand comes out on top across the 32 nations that began the Women’s Football World Cup competition last month. This is primarily due to its relatively high ranking in both the GGG and CFR Indexes. Below are all the countries ranked in order with the average index. You can check out the full table, with index rating and rank in each of the three indexes (along with the FIFA football ranking in June) at this link.

WWC Countries 3-Index Average Overall rank (among WWC nations) New Zealand  0.888 1 England (= UK) 0.866 2 Canada  0.865 3 Spain  0.864 4 Norway  0.863 5 Australia  0.861 6 Denmark  0.859 7 Sweden  0.854 8 Netherlands 0.851 9 Germany  0.842 10 France 0.834 11 Portugal 0.827 12 United States  0.822 13 Ireland 0.822 14 Switzerland  0.811 15 South Africa  0.792 16 South Korea 0.786 17 Italy  0.785 18 Costa Rica  0.777 19 Philippines  0.773 20 Argentina  0.763 21 Brazil  0.751 22 Panama  0.751 23 Colombia  0.737 24 Zambia 0.725 25 Jamaica  0.719 26 Japan  0.712 27 Vietnam 0.706 28 China  0.694 29 Nigeria  0.649 30 Morocco  0.622 31 Haiti* 0.540 32

 *= average across 2 indexes; GGG index not available for
  Haiti

Photo sourced from NZ Football

When the World Came to Wellington: a personal view of the WWC

 Without wanting to endorse the FIFA marketing machine, I’ve been thinking about their slogan ‘Football unites the world’, and I have to say for me, it has through this Women’s World Cup, whose final New Zealand game is being played tonight. I didn’t engage with loads of overseas tourists, but it’s made me appreciate the diversity and linkages of my own friends here, as I encountered them, or re-encountered them, through football – and Facebook.

Looking back over my games:

The first game in Wellington (Spain v Costa Rica), I met up with a young Colombian I’d first met earlier in the year in a random encounter during a changeover between two different cultural shows at our local community access radio. He was Colombian, I was Dutch (Kiwi), and we found common ground in a concern over climate change issues. At that first (very cold and wet) football encounter on 21 July we also united in backing underdog Costa Rica.

My next match was through complimentary tickets passed onto me by a former work colleague (and Facebook friend) who responded to my call for company at some of the upcoming Wellington games. Through her daughter who was helping out at the games, she had four complimentaries for Sweden v South Africa on 23 July. So I went – along with a Malaysian New Zealander who plays weekly social indoor football at the Indian Cultural Centre, and two Maori-Samoan sons of a friend of mine who already had tickets to that game through another circle of friends.

Third Wellington game was NZ-Philippines, and the only way I could get a ticket was by asking my non-footballing friend with a wheelchair, whether she’d been won over by New Zealand’s unexpected victory in the opener against Norway to be interested in seeing their next game live. She was, well she was excited by going to see something a bit different anyhow. Over-confident New Zealand fans (like me) expecting a walkover then had to eat humble pie when WWC debutantes Philippines beat us 1-0 (the Filipinos in the crowd possibly outscored the New Zealand fans on vocal support as well). But I was genuinely happy for my Filipino workmates at this turn of events and gave one of them a big hug when I saw her straight after the game.

For the Netherlands v US game, I’d arranged tickets for an elderly couple from the Dutch Club, and for my former work colleague mentioned above; and got shouted my own tickets by the Netherlands Embassy for services rendered earlier in the year. At this even-stevens match, it was a delight to see after the match two guys walking side-by-side with complementary ‘Netherlands’ and ‘USA’ tee-shirts.

For the last Wellington game – the quarter final decider between Spain and Netherlands, I met up  with my Colomban friend again. Before the game, we checked out FIFA’s commitment to ‘rewilding football’ and debated whether it was greenwash, or a genuine growing commitment to environmentalism. After the game, I met up with my friend with a disability, who had become a ‘rent-a-crip’ (she’s ok with the term) for another friend of hers at this sell-out final game in Wellington. And with my daughter, we discussed the anthropology of football crowds – among other things, before venturing down to check out the fanzone.

In addition to the live matches, I’ve been posting blogs and sending messages about the football to friends around the country – and cousins in the Netherlands who have been following their team from a distance. So yes, I would have to say that for me football has been uniting my little world of people both near and far. And as regards the title of this blog – yes, ‘the world did come to Wellington’ but then again, you could say ‘the world is already here’. Keep it coming.

Final 8 - by the Women, Peace and Security Index

Rankings for the final 8 on the Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS). Sweden on top, and Colombia is the only developing nation left in the last rounds:

Rankings below are, first their rank among the 32 starting nations at the WWC, followed by WPS Ranking among all 170 countries listed in the Index

4 Sweden 7

5 England* 9  (*=UK)

6 Netherlands 10

10 Spain 14

11 France 15

15 Australia 24

18 Japan 35

27 Colombia 90

See the original discussion and full rankings here.  

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%.

Digging Deeper: why NZ is 9th at the WWC on peace & security

I've just been exploring a bit on the basis for the Women’s Peace & Security Index (WPI), and took a closer look at the measures that led to New Zealand’s rank at 13 among the 167 countries examined by the WPI (and 9^th among those competing at the Women’s World Cup).

The WPS Index is assessed using three dimensions of women’s well-being: inclusion (economic, social, political); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels). Performance in these areas is quantified through 11 indicators, where a higher score indicates better performance. The indicators are aggregated at the national level to create a global ranking among the 167 countries. You can see the full set of indicators in the diagram below.

Just delving quickly into New Zealand’s ranking, I noted that it scored highly in Women’s employment, Financial independence, Absence of legal discrimination, and topped Women’s share of parliamentary seats in its group of 25 other developed countries. Indeed, the share of parliamentary seats went from 34.2% in 2017 to 48.3% for 2021.

However – New Zealand scored low among the same countries on women’s perception of community safety, declining from 54.3% in 2017 to 50.3%. Norway (NZ’s first opponent in the football) topped the group well above at 89.5%.

You can find out more detail about any country and the individual indicator levels that make up it’s overall index and ranking at: https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/ (click on the map, or click the country in the alpha drop down list).

 As a side note: for today’s big game in Wellington, based on the WPI, Netherlands and the United States are ranked at 6^th and 14^th respectively among the WWC countries. See the full rankings here.

 

New Zealand v Norway – on the equality indices

With New Zealand due to kick off against Norway today in the Women’s Football World Cup, looking at their rankings in the Women’s Peace & Security Index, Norway come out on top, while New Zealand is 13^th in the index (and 9^th among those appearing in the Football World Cup. See the rankings here.

HOWEVER, in the alternative Women's Workplace Equality Index, New Zealand comes up third (after Australia and Canada) with a 93.6/100 score based on a range of measures such as Accessing institutions, Building credit, Getting a job, and Protecting women from violence (where NZ scores poorly actually). This measures the formal legal obstacles to women’s economic participation, not actual participation. "While there is often a large gap between laws on the books and their implementation, formal legal equality is a critical first step to closing the gap between women and men in the economy." 

However, for a close match on the gender equality front – go to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2021 which has Norway and New Zealand at 3^rd (84.95) and 4^th(84%) respectively – after Iceland and Finland (not represented at the World Cup).

On the sporting front, I’d be looking for a close game between NZ and Norway tonight, two of my favourite countries, and with many similarities. But NZ must come out on top!