Advancing women’s equality in the countries of Asia Pacific could add $4.5 trillion to their collective annual GDP by 2025, a 12 percent increase over the business-as-usual trajectory. Already a powerful engine of global growth, pursuing the goal of gender parity can lift many more women out of poverty, unleash the economic potential of many others, and reinforce the region’s dynamic growth story.

This research builds on MGI’s landmark 2015 report on global gender inequality, The power of parity: How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth, which found that advancing women’s equality could add $12 trillion to annual global GDP by 2025. Every region studied has the potential to increase its GDP by 8 to 16 percent over the next ten years. MGI used 15 economic and social indicators to compile a Gender Parity Score, or GPS, for each country