In 2021, the Reykjavík Index average score for the G7 countries remains at 73 – the same as in 2020 and 2019, and only one point higher than in 2018.
At a country level, the Reykjavík Index ranking is the same as last year, with the UK remaining in first position. The Index score for Canada has dropped for the first time since the launch of the Index, while the score for France has decreased for the third time running.
Italy's score has progressed by one point on last year, while the scores for the US, Japan, and Germany have not changed.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership by G7 country, 2018-2021
Overall, women are more likely than men to perceive men and women as equally suitable for leadership: the average Index score across the G7 is 76 for women vs 71 for men.
The only exception is in Japan: the score for women is one point lower than for men. Germany and France have the widest gap between the views of women and men.
At the G7 level, the average Index score for women has decreased by one point vs 2020, while the score for men has increased by two points year on year.
The biggest changes can be seen in the scores for men in Italy (+ three points, which reverse last year’s drop) and in Japan (+ four points).
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2020/2021: women/men by G7 country
Changes in women’s and men’s views by G7 country in 2021 vs 2020
Across all G7 countries, the youngest age group (18-34) have less progressive attitudes to gender and leadership, than older people. They report an Index score of 69 – a three-point drop compared to 2020, while the Index scores reach 74 among people aged 35-54, and 77 among the older age group (55-65).
This generational gap, which has increased from four points in 2020 to eight points in 2021, points to a rise in traditional views amongst young people across the G7.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2020/2021: changes in G7 average by age group
The generation gap across the G7 countries, according to which younger people are less progressive in their views towards gender equality in leadership than their older counterparts, is pronounced in Japan and Germany.
Japanese people aged 55-65 have an Index score of 76, while the score for young people is only 58: this is the largest gap observed across all 22 countries. In Germany, the gap between younger and older age groups is 11 points.
With a four-point gap between the Index scores of its younger and older generations, the US is the G7 country with the smallest dissonance between the views of these two age groups.
Age group scores in all G7 countries
Across the G7 countries, Japan is the country whose Index scores have varied the most: the steep nine-point decrease in the score of its younger generation points to a risk of increasing prejudice.
However, at a country level, this drop is offset by the increased scores of both the 35-54 and 55-65 age groups, which explains the overall stability of Japan’s Index score.
Canada’s younger generation has also scored lower in 2021, with a four-point decrease vs 2020. In France, it is the score given for the 35-54 age group that has seen the biggest fall (down four points).
Conversely, for Italy, the overall increase in its 2021 Index score is driven by its older generation, whose score has increased by four points year on year.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2021/2022: the changes in the views of all age groups by G7 country
At the G7 level, the drop in the Index score of the 18-34 age group is mainly driven by the decrease in the score of young women, with a four-point drop compared to 2020 – while the score of young men has decreased by just one point.
The overall year-on-year stability of the G7 average Index score is due to the increased scores of the older generation, and particularly men aged 55-65 (+ three points vs 2020), whose score is now higher than the score given by young women across the G7.
The Index scores of both women and men aged 35-54 have remained stable year on year.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2021/2022: changes in the G7 average score by age group for women and men
The age and gender distribution at G7 level shows both a generational shift (the Index increases with age) and a gender gap, with each age group showing a higher Index for women than for men.
At the country level however, there are significant disparities. Germany is the only country to replicate the G7 average pattern, although with significantly lower Index scores.
In other countries, the Index increases consistently with age for men, but the situation varies for women. In the UK, the Index is slightly lower for women aged 55-65, and in the United States, the Index is identical for women across all three age groups.
In France, and even more so in Italy, women in the 35 – 54 age group have a lower Index than the other two generations of women. While in Italy the gender gap is very small amongst 35-54 year olds, in France the gap between young men and young women is particularly high.
Japan is the most atypical G7 country, being the only one where the segment expressing the strongest gender stereotypes is young women.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2021/2022: sector scores by G7 country
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership ranks 23 sectors for their perceived suitability for both male and female leaders.
At the G7 level, Media & Entertainement, Natural Sciences, and Economics & Political Science remain the top three sectors where a large majority consider men and women to be equally suited to lead – as was the case in 2020. Similarly, we find the same five sectors at the bottom of our ranking in 2021 as in 2020.
Overall, sector-level perceptions of the suitability of individuals to hold positions of power, tend to be similar across the different G7 countries: there is very little variation in the ranking of sectors in each country, especially for those with either the highest or lowest Index scores.
While women are more progressive than men in their views across each of the 23 sectors covered in our research, they also still show prejudice about gender and leadership. For instance, the Index scores of women for the Childcare, and Fashion & Beauty sectors are only 57 and 61 respectively.
Defence & Police is the sector where there is the largest level of dissonance between the views of women (68) and men (58), followed by Intelligence Services, and Engineering (both have an eight-point gap) - perhaps indicating that as more women enter these sectors, their views are evolving faster than men's.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2021/2022 scores for the G7 per sector
On average, only 52% of people across the G7 say they are ‘very comfortable’ with having a woman as Head of Government, with women being more positively predisposed than men towards female leadership.In 2021, only 47% of men across the G7 (+ one percentage point vs 2020) support the idea of having a woman as Head of Government, compared to 57% of women – which represents a drop of two percentage points vs 2020.
At a country level, a large majority of women in the UK (74%) and Canada (70%) are ‘very comfortable’ with having a woman as Head of Government, while only 37% of men in Japan and Germany agree with this statement.
Across countries, German citizens represent the highest proportion of people stating that they are not comfortable with having a woman as Head of Government (22% of German men and 15% of German women), followed by American men (15%).
Percentage of people in 2020 and 2021 who agree with the statement “I would feel very comfortable with a woman as the Head of Government in my country”
In the G7, there has been no change year-on-year in the proportion of women who are very comfortable having a woman as a CEO of a major company while the proportion of men who say the same has increased by two percentage points, now nearly reaching 50%.
Nevertheless, the views about women in power as CEOs remain very similar to the perception of women as Heads of Government, with a 10-point gap between men and women.
Responses to this question broadly reflect the overall Index hierarchy across the G7: the UK, Canada and the US express the most progressive views; Germany and Japan are the two countries most affected by gender prejudices; and Italy and France sit in between.
However, the decline of the Index in France is not reflected in the answers to the question about a woman as CEO. In this country, the proportion of people feeling “very comfortable” with that perspective has increased by two points among men (46%) and five points among women (54%).
Overall, the degree of prejudice towards women in power is slightly lower when it comes to leading a big company than leading a government.
Percentage of people in 2020 to 2021 who agree with the statement “I would feel very comfortable with a woman as CEO of a major company in my country”
