Promises over practice: How the world's most influential companies approach gender equality

Gender equality is at a crossroads as progress towards parity remains too slow and uneven, while corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts face growing political backlash in some markets. This moment tests whether companies will retreat to minimal compliance or strengthen systems that protect and empower women in their own operations, supply chains and communities.

The 2026 Gender Insights Report draws on the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA)’s assessment of 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies, which represent nearly half of global GDP and support the livelihoods of more than 500 million workers across operations and supply chains, to examine whether corporate commitments translate into measurable outcomes. Our new report highlights the following:

• Nearly 71% of companies publicly prohibit violence and harassment. However, only 3% provide survivor-centred support leaving a staggering 68% implementation gap between policy and practice.
• More than two-thirds of companies fail to clearly disclose their maternity leave duration. Even among the minority that do, fewer than 5% meet international standards for duration, pay and global applicability combined.
• Only 7% of companies demonstrate meaningful worker engagement on just transition, and less than 1% explicitly recognise women as a distinct stakeholder group in transition dialogue. Sex-disaggregated data on layoffs and transition impacts is scarce, and only two of 1,600 real-economy companies demonstrate gender-responsive action in reskilling or job creation.

Our analysis shows that global progress on gender equality remains marginal and efforts vary between companies depending on where it is headquartered, which sector it operates in and whether its focus is on direct operations or the supply chain. However, gender equality will not advance through corporate action alone – investors, policymakers and civil society also have a key role to play. Even amid systemic gaps, change is possible.