<P> The Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum . The 2016 report covers 144 major and emerging economies . The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality . </P> <P> The report's Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to calculated gender gap between women and men in four key areas: health, education, economy and politics . The report measures women's disadvantage compared to men, and is not strictly a measure of equality . Gender imbalances to the advantage of women do not affect the score . So, for example, the indicator "number of years of a female head of state (last 50 years) over male value" would score 1 if the number of years was 25, but would still score 1 if the number of years was 50 . Due to this methodology, gender gaps that favor women over men are reported as equality, for example the life expectancy of women being longer than men in a country would not cause deficits of equality in other areas to become less visible in the score . </P>

Who gives global gender gap index ranking to the countries of the world