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.