It could now take 131 years to close the global gender gap after an “entire generation” of progress was lost to Covid-19, according to the World Economic Forum.

In a new report published Wednesday, WEF said that worldwide gender inequality looked set to endure until 2154 despite a modest improvement since the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the timeline stretched to 135.6 years.

Saadia Zahidi, managing director at WEF, said many of the factors that have set women back over recent years — including insufficient care infrastructure, workforce disruption from new technologies, and stagnation across sectors — remain prevalent.

“We’re starting to see things get slightly back on track. But what it does mean is that we still have lost an entire generation on the road to gender equality and, essentially, progress has stalled,” Zahidi told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche.

WEF also found that while women have entered the labor force at a higher rate than men globally since 2022, gaps in the market continue to persist, with women facing greater unemployment rates globally (4.5%) than men (4.3%).

The Global Gender Gap Report, now in its 17th year, benchmarks gender-based gaps in fours areas: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment.

Iceland ranked as the most gender-equal country in the world for the 14th consecutive year and the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.

It was followed in the top 10 by Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia, Lithuania and Belgium. While no country has yet achieved full gender parity, the top nine ranking countries have closed at least 80% of their gap.

On a regional level, Europe has the highest gender parity at 76.3%, overtaking North America, where 75% of the gap is closed. Zahidi said this was partly due to the greater provision of care infrastructure across Europe versus the U.S.

“Many European economies have put in place measures to allow parents to balance work and family, whether those parents are mothers or fathers. In the United States, there’s far less of that. There’s a more commercial provision of the care economy, but that isn’t necessarily meeting all needs,” Zahidi said.

Elsewhere, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the rate stands at 74.3%, while in Eurasia and Central Asia it is 69%. The level is lower still in East Asia and the Pacific (68.8%), Sub-Saharan Africa (68.2%), Southern Asia (63.4%) and the Middle East and North Africa (62.6%).

Global gender parity has advanced by only 4.1 percentage points since the report’s first edition in 2006, with the pace of change slowing over time.

At the current rate, it will take 169 years to reach economic parity and 162 years for political parity, the report found.

“The economic inclusion element is where there’s been the greatest stagnation, in part due to care, in part due to technology,” Zahidi said.

“But then when it comes to political leadership, progress has also been extremely mild, and essentially it is a roadblock to leadership that we continue to see across various areas,” she added.

Faster progress in both of those areas is critical to addressing broader gender gaps in households, societies and economies, Zahidi said, outlining a three-pronged approach for governments and businesses to take action.

“Number one, governments have to invest in a care infrastructure. Number two, both governments and businesses have to focus on STEM education, STEM skills and STEM careers for women,” she said, referring to the acronym for the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

“Number three, all businesses, all employers have to look at creating more gender equal hiring, retention and promotion,” she said. “Those are three things that could accelerate getting to parity within our lifetimes.”