2.2 Overview: State of gender equality in the Asia-Pacific Gender equality and women’s empowerment are not only fundamental human rights principles but also cornerstones of sustainable, inclusive, and equitable development (UNESCAP, 2020). Given that the Asia-Pacific region is home to more than half of the world’s population, progress—or lack thereof—in gender equality is a critical driver of global trends. What happens in this region’s national and international policy domains therefore has direct implications for worldwide outcomes. Governments across the region have reaffirmed their commitment to gender equality through ratification of various international frameworks, including the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action(BPfA)(1995), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, CEDAW, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD), and the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on WPS. At the regional level, organisations such as ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum have introduced gender mainstreaming frameworks that offer institutional entry points for integrating gender equality in national and regional policy discussions. Yet, despite these commitments, substantial gaps persist between norms and practice, as feminist advocacy efforts to challenge power relations, structural inequalities, and patriarchal norms that underpin policy outcomes remain limited. According to the Asia­Pacific SDG Progress Report(UNESCAP, 2025b), progress towards achieving the 17 SDGs across the region remains significantly off track. In particular, a persistent data gap for Goal 5(gender equality) continues to hamper effective monitoring and policymaking. While the policy and normative architecture for gender equality is well established, the translation of commitments into tangible outcomes remains uneven across and within subregions. Over the past three decades, the Asia-Pacific has demonstrated the most rapid progress in human development globally, with its Human Development Index (HDI) increasing by 19 per cent—driven by improvements in life expectancy, education, and income(UNDP, 2024b). However, these gains have not been evenly shared. In 2022, the HDI score for women in South Asia was 0.58, compared to 0.67 for men. In contrast, the scores for women and men in East Asia and the Pacific were 0.74 and 0.77, respectively. Similarly, the Global Gender Gap Index 2025 (World Economic Forum, 2025) reveals wide subregional variations: East Asia and the Pacific ranked fifth, while South Asia ranked seventh out of eight global regions, having closed 69 per cent and 64 per cent of their overall gender gaps, respectively. Both regions have achieved near parity in education and health, closing over 90 per cent of these gaps. However, progress varies across other dimensions. In line with global trends, where gender parity in economic participation is at 61 per cent and in political empowerment at 22.9 per cent, the Asia-Pacific region shows similar disparities, reflecting its distinct socio-political contexts rather than a uniform trajectory of progress. East Asia and the Pacific have achieved 71.6 per cent parity in economic participation, compared to only 40.6 per cent in South Asia. Conversely, South Asia performs better in political empowerment at 26.8 per cent, compared to 15.3 per cent in East Asia and the Pacific. These differences highlight how structural and institutional factors influence women’s access to power and resources differently across subregions. While East Asia’s stronger economic integration and labour market participation provide women with greater economic opportunities, South Asia’s higher representation of women in political leadership points to divergent pathways towards gender equality. Approximately 800 million women remain excluded from the workforce. Participation rates vary sharply across the region: only 14 per cent of women in Iran and 25 per cent in Pakistan are economically active, compared to 69 per cent in Vietnam(UNDP, 2024b). Even when women participate in the labour force, they are overrepresented in informal, low­paid sectors—such as home-based production, agricultural labour, or small-scale trade—and underrepresented in emerging industries. In Indonesia, for example, informal employment accounted for nearly 75 per cent of total employment in 2019, with many women operating household-based enterprises that lack access to credit, insurance, and labour protections(Ablaza et al., 2023). On average, women in the region spend four times more hours on unpaid care work than men, limiting their participation not only in the labour market but also in the public domains of community and politics(ILO, 2018). Public underinvestment in care infrastructure and healthcare further deepens these inequalities, leading to what Rai et al.(2017) call“depletion”—the exhaustion of women’s physical, emotional, and temporal capacities that sustain economies without commensurate recognition or compensation. While family-friendly policies such as maternity leave, childcare support, and flexible working hours are often presented as evidence of progress, they primarily cover formal-sector employees, leaving the majority of women in the informal sector excluded. Consequently, such measures risk reinforcing rather than transforming the structural conditions that perpetuate women’s economic marginalisation. Political representation has also improved incrementally but remains insufficient. According to the IPU-UN Women Women in Politics Map, published by the Inter­Parliamentary Union(IPU)(2025a), the proportion of women in executive and legislative roles has increased but still falls below the global average of 25 per cent. A few countries—including Australia, New Zealand, Timor-Leste, 20 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.