Fair play on gender results in football success
Sporting results have long provided insights into the relative economic and social prowess of nations. Now it turns out the Women’s World Cup is an indicator of gender equality within countries
Greg Langley
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The Women’s World Rankings issued by FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, match closely to those of the Gender Inequality Index from the United Nations (see graph). Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries all cluster at the top of FIFA Women’s rankings and rank high on the UN Gender Inequality Index (GII) in terms of being among the best performers on gender issues.
“It should come as no surprise that the teams doing best on the pitch are countries that generally provide the best opportunities for women,” says Brigitte Miksa, head of International Pensions, a research unit at Allianz Asset Management. “It appears how well a women’s team performs is also a useful indicator of the ability of women to realize their potential in other areas of their societies as well.”
Other countries ranking in the top 30 of both lists include France, which scored 12 on the GII and is placed third in the world by FIFA, Spain (16 and 14), and Switzerland (2 and 19). From the Asian region, Australia (19 and 10), Japan (25 and 4) and the Republic of Korea (17 and 18) also feature in the top 30 of both lists. In total, approximately 50% of the variation in women’s soccer ranking can be explained by difference in gender equality.
Countries not in the top 30 men’s teams, but which rank high on gender equality also dominate the FIFA Women’s tables. Sweden is ranked 39 in the male game, but fifth in the women’s and Canada is 109 in the men’s but a top performer at eighth in the women’s table. Norway, one of the first countries to have a semi-professional women’s league, is 64 and 11. Germany, third in the world on gender equality, is ranked first in both the women’s and men’s games.
Ivory Coast has the worst inequality ranking of teams competing at the World Cup at 143. The female national team is ranked 67 in the world and the men’s at 24.
“What is revealing about the FIFA Women’s Ranking is some omissions from the 24 competing teams,” says Miksa. “Despite being powerhouses in the men’s sports, countries such as Argentina, Chile and Uruguay perform poorly on both the women’s tables and gender equality rankings. While South American countries do disproportionally well in terms of the men’s game, the macho culture doesn’t seem to translate well for the success of women on or off the field.”
First introduced in, the UN GII measures gender inequality by such measures as maternal mortality and adolescent birth rates, the proportion of parliamentary seats held by women, secondary education and roles within the labor force. Outliers in the comparisons include Brazil, which ranks fifth in the FIFA men’s table and seventh in the women’s, but 85 on the UN GII.
Miksa notes that although the comparisons provide a useful indicator into gender equality within countries, there can be a long way to go in international sporting institutions themselves. “The FIFA Men’s World Cup never would have taken place on artificial turf like the Women’s one now is controversially being played.”
In October of last year, a group of prominent women’s soccer players, including Brazil’s Marta, Germany’s Nadine Angerer and Abby Wambach of the US took a gender-discrimination lawsuit to have FIFA install natural grass for matches at this summer’s Women’s World Cup. All six prior women’s World Cups, and all 20 men’s, have been played on grass fields, because it’s considered a superior playing surface.