KEY POINTS:
For Kiwi women wanting to get ahead, the news is all good - New Zealand has been ranked fifth in the world for gender equality.
The World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index, published annually, measures the divide between men and women in four key areas - economic participation, education, political empowerment and health.
It studies outcomes on salaries, access to high level employment and education, representation in decision-making structures, life expectancy and sex ratio.
This year's results suggest Aotearoa's gender gap is getting smaller - we ranked two places higher than last year.
That's well ahead of Australia at 17, and the United States, at a lowly 31.
Only the Nordic countries ranked ahead of us, with Sweden recording the world's smallest gender gap ahead of Norway, Finland and Iceland.
There was some evidence of the link between the gender gap and the economic performance of countries, one of the report's authors, Laura Tyson, said.
"Our work shows a strong correlation between competitiveness and the gender gap scores."
Countries that did not fully capitalise effectively on "one-half of their human resources" ran the risk of "undermining their competitive potential".
Senior lecturer in employment relations at AUT University, Dr Rachel Morrison, said it was not surprising Kiwis were strong when it came to health and our access to education.
"This is now being seen in girls outperforming boys at almost every level of education."
However, she said there was still plenty of room for improvement when it came to equal salaries and access to high-level positions.
"Certainly in academia and in the health care area, the gap is not good."
