Georgetown Institute’s Women, Peace and Security Index gave Luxembourg an index value of 0.841, placing it among the top countries for women’s inclusion and welfare in the world, based on specific factors.

Luxembourg scored particularly highly for financial inclusion with 97% of women aged 15 and up having access to banking, compared to the global average of 55%.

And it boasted among the highest mean years of schooling for women aged 25 upwards at 11.6, compared to 6.8 globally. The report said that women held 28% of parliamentary seats in Luxembourg in 2016 (compared to a global average of 20%), meanwhile, over half of all women aged 25 and above, 54%, were employed (global average was 50%).

There was relatively little recorded legal gender discrimination in Luxembourg, according to the index, while discriminatory norms were low and just 2% of men suggested it was unacceptable for women to work (compared to 19% globally). Safety perceptions were high with 71% (global average of 60.5%) of women aged 15 and upwards saying they felt safe in their community.

One category which bucked the positive trend was the proportion of lifetime intimate partner violence, recorded at 22% in Luxembourg, compared to a 30% global average.

The report, which was published in October 2017, placed Iceland at the top of the ranking with the same proportion of lifetime intimate partner violence but a higher safety perception at 80%. Norway was in second, followed by Switzerland, Slovenia, Spain and Finland. In joint seventh place was the Netherlands, Canada and Sweden while Singapore was in tenth place.