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Luxembourg was one of only eight countries will full legal gender parity, a World Bank study found. Library picture: World Bank headquarters in Washington DC, 6 January 2019. Photo credit: Jer123/Shutterstock.com 

Belgium, France, Denmark, Latvia, Luxembourg, Sweden, Canada and Iceland were the only ones offering full equal rights for men and women, at least from a legal perspective.

87 countries out of the world’s 194 ranked at 80 percent or above, up from 80 in 2019. Saudi Arabia, which came in last in 2019, has improved its score majorly following new laws implemented in the country and now ranked 131th at 70 percent. The last place in the 2020 ranking went to Yemen (26.3 percent), ahead of Sudan (26.9 percent). 

The United States ranked at 91.3 percent below countries like Peru and Albania. It lost points because of a lack of laws guaranteeing equal pay and equal pensions, as well as because of notoriously bad laws around parental leave.

This chart shows country scores for equal rights for men and women guaranteed by law

This article and chart originally appeared on the blog of Statista, a data firm, and are republished with permission.