2021 Global GEPA Report

The UNDP-Pitt 2021 global report on Gender Equality in Public Administration (GEPA) provides an overview of key trends and analysis on women’s participation and leadership in public administration, drawing from the Gender Parity in Civil Service (Gen-PaCS) dataset. The report finds that though there has been progress on women’s representation overall in public administration, persistent gaps remain. Women continue to hit glass ceilings and glass walls that stop them from advancing to positions at the highest levels of power and influence, including in organizations tasked with COVID-19 response. The report also highlights the important ways that gender intersects with disability; race, ethnicity, and indigeneity; age; and other social categories to shape inequalities in public administration. The report closes with practical recommendations to reimagine and redesign more gender inclusive and diverse public administrations.

The report is the product of six years of collaboration between researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and UNDP. Att Pitt, the effort has been led by GIRL Co-Directors Melanie Hughes and Müge Finkel, and supported through the years by over 100 graduate students from the GEPA Working Group.

The 2021 global GEPA report was launched at, "Where Are the Women?," a virtual side event for the UN High-Level Political Forum in July 2021.

To Cite the Report

Finkel, Müge, Melanie M. Hughes, and Joanna Hill. 2021. Gender Equality in Public Administration. New York, NY: UNDP and University of Pittsburgh.

To Access the Report

To Access Briefs focused on UNDP Regional Groupings

To Access Policy Briefs Related to the Report

Table of Contents

  1. Gender Equality in Public Administration: An Introduction
  2. Women's Participation in Public Administration: Key Trends
  3. Glass Ceilings: Challenges to Gender-Inclusive Decision-Making in Public Administration
  4. Glass Walls: Sectoral Differences in Gender Inclusion
  5. Gender-Inclusive Public Administration and COVID-19
  6. Intersectionalities: A New Frontier
  7. Recommendations
  • Appendix A: 2021 GEPA Report Methodology
  • Appendix B: Data Availability
  • Appendix C: Measures of Women's Participation and Decision-Making in Public Administration​