Women’s Freedom Index 2026: Ranking Countries by Women’s Freedom Around the World

Freedom is easy to understand in theory but it is much harder to put into practice in the real-world.

A woman might have the right to work but still struggle to find a job. She may be allowed by law to own property yet never be able to claim it. She could have the right to move freely but her family or community might stop her from doing so. These are not just issues—they are real barriers that limit what freedom really means for women.

That is why measuring freedom for women cannot rely on one number. It must look at different aspects and use many different data points.

The VizAtlas Women Freedom Index 2026 takes this seriously. It uses a perspective—a freedom-first approach—to evaluate the conditions for women’s freedom. It looks at equality, personal and civic freedoms, safety, mobility, economic rights, property ownership, education, access to justice and how well institutions actually work. The index covers 181 countries and economies giving each a score between 0 and one 100. A higher score means better conditions for women’s freedom.

What the numbers show is not a world where everyone’s either free or unfree. Instead there is a spread. Some countries are near the top— ahead of others. Many fall in the middle with varying degrees of progress for women. At the bottom end some countries offer very little in terms of actual freedom for women. This pattern appears different across the globe.

And perhaps the important insight is this: Women freedom is not simple but multidimensional.

A country can perform well in one area—like education—yet do poorly in another—like safety. Laws can improve fast. The institutions that enforce them may lag behind. People can gain voice without having economic power. Formal equality can exist while real-life experiences remain unequal.

So the index does not give a judgment. It acts more like a map—one that helps us see the path societies are, on as they move from rights to real opportunities.

What Is the Women Freedom Index?

“Women Freedom Index 2026” is a tool that helps us see how situations affect women’s ability to make choices about their lives.

This idea means more than gender equality.

Equal treatment usually asks the question, “How similar are the outcomes for women and men?” That is what we would normally expect. Freedom however asks a question: “What rights, choices, protections and opportunities do women actually have?” That difference matters.

The index that focuses on freedom looks at whether women can take part in society, travel freely, make decisions for themselves and their families, get an education, own and manage property, work and earn money, join politics and find protection and justice, when their rights are broken.

Therefore in VizAtlas Index, rights, protection and autonomy carry the weight in the framework, not just outcomes. Seventy percent of this weight goes to rights, protection and autonomy while about thirty percent focuses on women‑specific outcomes.

The design uses eight pillars: fundamental rights and legal equality; safety and protection from violence; personal and family autonomy; movement and identity; economic and property rights; education and equal opportunity; political and civic rights; and justice, enforcement and institutions.

What this structure deliberately skips is the idea that women are best off as unpaid workers. Freedom is bigger than any number.

Rank	Country	Women Freedom Index Value
1	Denmark	93.90
2	Iceland	93.20
3	Norway	92.40
4	Sweden	92.40
5	Finland	92.10
6	Luxembourg	91.80
7	Belgium	91.20
8	Netherlands	90.50
9	Austria	89.80
10	New Zealand	89.80
11	Australia	89.60
12	Estonia	89.60
13	Ireland	89.10
14	Slovenia	88.90
15	Lithuania	88.70
16	Canada	88.50
17	Latvia	88.40
18	Singapore	88.40
19	Switzerland	87.70
20	United Arab Emirates	87.20
21	Germany	86.90
22	Japan	86.60
23	France	86.40
24	United Kingdom	86.40
25	Spain	86.20
26	Portugal	86.10
27	Poland	85.40
28	Taiwan	85.40
29	Serbia	84.40
30	Malta	84.10
31	United States	84.00
32	Czechia	83.20
33	Hungary	83.20
34	Costa Rica	82.40
35	Uruguay	82.20
36	Moldova	82.10
37	South Korea	81.50
38	Bulgaria	81.40
39	Italy	81.10
40	Seychelles	81.00
41	Hong Kong	80.90
42	Barbados	80.70
43	Romania	80.10
44	Mongolia	79.90
45	Georgia	79.80
46	Slovakia	79.70
47	Argentina	79.10
48	Croatia	78.80
49	Grenada	78.70
50	North Macedonia	78.70
51	Suriname	77.90
52	Cyprus	77.00
53	Guyana	77.00
54	Paraguay	76.80
55	Bahrain	76.50
56	Armenia	76.20
57	Thailand	76.10
58	Oman	75.50
59	Bosnia and Herzegovina	75.30
60	Greece	75.20
61	Montenegro	74.30
62	Cabo Verde	74.10
63	Belarus	73.90
64	Chile	73.90
65	Palau	73.90
66	Saudi Arabia	73.90
67	Malaysia	73.80
68	Albania	73.10
69	Fiji	73.10
70	Kuwait	72.30
71	Qatar	72.30
72	Kazakhstan	72.20
73	Vietnam	72.10
74	Turkmenistan	72.00
75	Russia	71.80
76	Puerto Rico	70.70
77	Sri Lanka	70.60
78	Maldives	70.40
79	Jamaica	70.30
80	Bolivia	70.10
81	Peru	70.10
82	Kosovo	70.00
83	Laos	69.80
84	Israel	69.70
85	Kyrgyzstan	69.70
86	Panama	69.60
87	El Salvador	69.10
88	Jordan	68.60
89	China	68.50
90	Samoa	68.50
91	Tajikistan	68.50
92	Tonga	68.50
93	Trinidad and Tobago	68.50
94	Gabon	67.90
95	Mauritius	67.90
96	Indonesia	67.80
97	Dominican Republic	67.50
98	Uzbekistan	67.40
99	Bhutan	67.30
100	Tunisia	67.10
101	Marshall Islands	67.00
102	Morocco	66.80
103	Timor-Leste	66.80
104	Belize	66.70
105	Cambodia	66.70
106	Türkiye	66.40
107	Nicaragua	65.90
108	Botswana	65.80
109	Solomon Islands	65.80
110	Senegal	65.70
111	Azerbaijan	65.30
112	Kiribati	65.20
113	Micronesia	64.80
114	South Africa	64.80
115	Vanuatu	64.60
116	Ukraine	64.50
117	Ghana	63.90
118	Venezuela	63.80
119	Brazil	63.20
120	Nepal	63.10
121	Rwanda	62.40
122	Tanzania	62.40
123	Algeria	62.10
124	São Tomé and Príncipe	62.00
125	Egypt	61.70
126	Lesotho	61.40
127	Ecuador	61.20
128	Iran	60.80
129	Libya	60.80
130	Namibia	60.80
131	India	60.70
132	Philippines	60.70
133	Angola	60.10
134	Sierra Leone	60.10
135	Comoros	59.00
136	Zimbabwe	59.00
137	Côte d’Ivoire	58.90
138	Benin	58.70
139	Uganda	58.70
140	Republic of the Congo	58.30
141	Lebanon	57.50
142	Zambia	56.60
143	Togo	56.20
144	Guatemala	56.10
145	Honduras	56.10
146	Djibouti	56.00
147	Mexico	55.80
148	Eswatini	55.60
149	Colombia	55.10
150	Malawi	54.90
151	Mozambique	54.80
152	Kenya	54.20
153	Gambia	52.80
154	Guinea	52.70
155	Bangladesh	52.60
156	Ethiopia	51.60
157	Liberia	51.20
158	Iraq	51.00
159	Guinea-Bissau	50.80
160	Burkina Faso	50.70
161	Papua New Guinea	50.70
162	Nigeria	49.50
163	Niger	49.20
164	Mali	47.80
165	Chad	47.60
166	Mauritania	47.50
167	Palestine	46.90
168	Madagascar	46.60
169	Pakistan	46.20
170	Somalia	45.50
171	Cameroon	45.10
172	Myanmar	44.20
173	South Sudan	41.10
174	Burundi	40.70
175	Democratic Republic of the Congo	40.50
176	Haiti	39.90
177	Sudan	39.70
178	Syria	36.40
179	Central African Republic	36.20
180	Yemen	32.30
181	Afghanistan	27.90

What Does “Women’s Freedom” Actually Mean?

The phrase sounds intuitive until measurement begins.

Freedom of movement is not the same as economic freedom. Economic freedom is not the same as freedom in marriage and family. Legal equality is not the same as access to justice. Political representation is not the same as political power.

So the framework moves beyond the idea that women’s freedom as a single thing. It recognizes that women’s freedom can mean multiple things at once.

Legal equality and fundamental rights mean whether women have rights and protections.
Safety and protection from violence focuses on violence against women, not on national security measures.
Personal and family autonomy refers to a person’s ability to make choices about marriage, family life and personal matters.
Movement and identity address women’s right to move, to not be denied their civil or legal identity and to take part in public life.
Economic and property rights include access to jobs, capital, assets, property, business opportunities and financial services.
Education and equality of opportunity are essential for developing girls capabilities and making sure women fully join society.
Political and civic rights focus on women’s participation and representation, not on overall democracy scores.
Finally there is justice, enforcement and institutions—the toughest question that makes people uneasy but must be asked: What happens when rights exist on paper but are ignored in reality?

A right that cannot be practically exercised is not a right all. It becomes a way of taking away that right.

The Big Pattern:

Freedom Is Institutional

The general characteristic about the 2026 data is that women’s freedom is strongly related to institutionality.

That does not mean, however that institutions are the thing that matters. Culture, economic development, conflict, historical events, demographics and social norms—they all play a role.

It is institutions that make rights usable.

What about the difference between a law and an enactable law?

A law can outlaw discrimination. If a woman cannot get an advocate, cannot report abuse without risking her safety, cannot document abuse and if public authorities do not respond properly—then the real value of that law is greatly reduced. The law may say one thing. The actual experience is quite different.

That is why the index gives strong weight to justice and enforcement. It doesn’t assume that law alone is enough.

The same idea applies to rights.

Right To Work: You may have the right to work. Do you really have equal access to jobs?
Right To Own Property: You may have the right to own property. Do you have the same control over your assets?
Right To Establish a Business: You may have the right to start a business. Are you blocked by lack of finance, childcare, social networks or outdated expectations?

There is a new space for Freedom to live—a space, between the words written in the statute book and the real world where those words are either realized or ignored.

Safety Is Not the Same as General National Security

An important part of the VizAtlas methodology is that safety is clearly defined as violence that impacts women. This difference is not minor. A country might have low levels of general violence but still experience extreme forms of violence against women. On the other hand, a place with high overall insecurity could see different patterns of violence affecting women.

When these ideas are mixed into a broad “safety” score, key differences can get lost. That’s why women’s protection is treated as its separate dimension within the Women Freedom Index.

This focus connects directly to the Women, Peace and Security framework. The Women, Peace and Security Index for 2025/26 covers 181 countries and economies. It tracks women’s progress in inclusion, justice and security using 13 indicators. Data comes from sources, like the United Nations, the World Bank and Gallup.

For the definition of the VizAtlas index, this current and comprehensive body of evidence plays a central role. It guides the index’s approach while also fitting into a freedom-first way of thinking.

Legal Equality Has Layers

The obvious mistake when doing gender analysis is to treat legal equality as if it’s just two options—either equal or not equal. That’s not how things work in real life.

Here’s the problem: The Women, Business and the Law framework from the World Bank evaluates the policy environment across eight key areas of women’s lives—safety, mobility, work, pay, marriage, parenthood, childcare, entrepreneurship, assets and pensions—for 174 economies. The newer version of this framework has added a different way of looking at the data.

That shift matters a lot. Because there’s a difference between:

What the law says on paper.
How institutions are set up to support it.
What actually happens in everyday life.

In the 2026 World Bank report, the legal dataset now includes 190 economies. It shows that women today still only have two-thirds of the legal rights that men have around the world. Even more, supportive systems and their application are much weaker than the laws themselves suggest.

This gap, between rights and real-world practice is one of the most important things to watch for in any freedom index.

Political Rights Require More Than Democracy

Freedom in Politics is another area where measurement can mislead.

A democratic score should not be seen as showing women’s access to politics. A country can hold elections yet the level of women’s representation in legislatures, the executive or other decision‑making bodies could be low.

Having said that the method used by VizAtlas focuses on women’s civic and political rights, not on a democracy score.

The research matches the literature, which keeps finding political representation as one of the most persistent gaps in gender equality.

The 2025 Global Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum showed that the worldwide gap in women empowerment was larger than the gaps, in education and health. The index calculates participation, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment separately.

In the 2026 version, this approach is extended into four dimensions showing that measuring gender has become more and more a separate part of political participation, not just a side effect of general institutional development.

Freedom and Development Are Related — But Not Identical

It would be easy to assume that richer societies automatically offer freedom to women. There is a connection, yes— But the full picture is much more complicated.

Wealth can help governments fund education, healthcare, legal systems and social safety nets. It can also create chances for women to earn their own income. But Wealth alone doesn’t determine rights. It doesn’t decide whether women can participate in politics. It doesn’t guarantee control over their lives.

This is clear from data by the World Economic Forum. In its 2025 report, it found that gender equality varies widely across income levels. Surprisingly some lower-income countries outperform richer ones in certain areas of women’s rights. That’s a reminder: development isn’t a simple fix. It’s not about money.

Real freedom for women isn’t, about income alone. It’s about the institutional environment—how laws treat them how culture sees them and how power is shared.

Conclusion: Freedom Is More Than a Right on Paper

The Vision Atlas Womens Freedom Index 2026 shows a world that is not simply split between freedom and unfreedom. It reveals a deeper and more complex divide—one that is not black and white but layered and complicated.

In 181 countries and economies, the scores goes from 27.9 to 93.9. The global average is 68.31 while median listed is 68.50. The top ten countries and economies have a score of 91.71. The bottom ten average 37.89.

These numbers show a large gap across the world.

The bigger truth is this: there is no winner and no loser in the fight for women’s freedom. Freedom for women is not something that just happens. It is not a moment or a single law that ends the struggle.

Freedom is built in layers. It starts with rights. It includes safety, personal autonomy, the ability to move freely, access to jobs and money, education, the right to take part in politics and justice when things go wrong. Each of these layers supports the others. When all of them work together freedom becomes strong and lasting. If even one layer is weak or missing—like safety or economic opportunity—then freedom becomes fragile. Even if laws are perfect, real freedom cannot be fully achieved.

The map is not data. It is a reminder. Freedom is not what is written in law. It is also what can be lived. A right on paper is important but a right that can truly be used—every day in real life—is more valuable.

This gap between the law and reality is where most of the world’s work remains. That is the space where progress must start. That is where the real fight, for women’s freedom must go on.

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Sources

• As a base for a 2026 global comparable dataset, we selected the 2025/26 Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS). This is the recent comprehensive dataset that uses 13 indicators across women’s inclusion, justice and security in 181 countries and economies.
• Next we looked at the World Bank Women, Business and the Law 2026. This dataset covers 190 countries. Examines legal systems in eight key areas: safety, mobility, work, pay, marriage, parenthood, child care, entrepreneurship, assets and pensions. It offers a basis for comparing how laws affect women’s rights globally.
• Another source is the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2026. This report has been tracking gender gaps for the 12 years. It covers 145 economies and measures disparities in participation and opportunity educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.
• We also considered policy and political indicators. The CFR Women’s Power Index measures both the relative position of women across all political institutions in 193 UN member states. This provides a picture of women’s presence and influence, in politics worldwide.