Denmark tops WPS index for women’s living conditions in 2025/2026

Denmark ranks first in the latest Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index for 2025/2026, registering a score of 0,939, while countries beset by conflict and prolonged crises appear at the bottom of the list.

The WPS Index evaluates 181 countries on conditions that shape women’s lives, including economic and political inclusion, access to justice and personal security. After Denmark come Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland; Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and New Zealand complete the top ten.

Why the Nordics lead

The Nordic countries lead largely because of high levels of female education, strong labour force participation, robust legal protections, meaningful political representation and comparatively low levels of violence. The report notes that no country achieved a perfect score, but Northern Europe remains the global benchmark for women’s standing.

At the opposite end of the ranking are Afghanistan, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Syria, Sudan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, South Sudan and Myanmar. In many of those states women face the consequences of long-running conflicts, political instability and humanitarian emergencies.

More than 70 percent of women living in the 12 lowest-ranked countries are located within 50 kilometres of an area of armed conflict, a proximity that increases the risk of displacement and gender-based violence.

The index, produced by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, measures not only gender equality but the broader capacity of societies to provide women with safety, economic opportunity, health care, legal protections and the ability to participate in decision-making. It finds that countries with stable institutions and developed social protection systems where women are more economically included generally score better, while those enduring long-term crises perform poorly across almost every dimension.

Photo: press material from the event