The latest Global Gender Gap Report, released by the WEF on Tuesday, covers 142 countries, with Iceland topping the rankings for the sixth year straight and Yemen being at the bottom.
With no country having closed its overall gender gap, Nordic nations remain the most gender-equal societies in the world.
"In nine years of measuring the global gender gap, the world has seen only a small improvement in equality for women in the workplace. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2014, launched today, the gender gap for economic participation and opportunity now stands at 60% worldwide, having closed by 4% from 56% in 2006 when the Forum first started measuring it. Based on this trajectory, with all else remaining equal, it will take 81 years for the world to close this gap completely," the WEF stated on its web site.
"Much of the progress on gender equality over the last 10 years has come from more women entering politics and the workforce. While more women and more men have joined the workforce over the last decade, more women than men entered the labour force in 49 countries. And in the case of politics, globally, there are now 26% more female parliamentarians and 50% more female ministers than nine years ago. These are far-reaching changes – for economies and national cultures, however, it is clear that much work still remains to be done, and that the pace of change must in some areas be accelerated," Saadia Zahidi, head of the WEF Gender Parity Programme and lead author of the report, was quoted as saying.
Apart from Croatia, the other five countries with a deteriorating gap were Sri Lanka, Mali, Macedonia, Jordan and Tunisia.
In the latest report, Croatia stands at the 55th place with a total score of 0.707 ponts, while the top-ranked Iceland scored 0.859 points.
Croatia scored best in the "Health and Survival" index, ranking 37th. It is 56th in the category of "Political Empowerment". In the "Economic Participation and Opportunity" index, Croatia ranks 65th, and is also 65th in the "Educational Attainment" index.
Some of the countries in Croatia's neighbourhood that fared better were Slovenia, ranked 23rd, and Serbia, ranked 54th.