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Women's Economic Opportunity Index

About this data

Source
Economist Intelligence Unit (2012) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 22, 2018
Date range
2012–2012

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Economist Intelligence Unit – Women's Economic Opportunity

The Women's Economic Opportunity (WEO) Index measures five categories to determine whether the environment for both women employees and women entrepreneurs is favourable. Five category scores are calculated from the unweighted mean of underlying indicators and scaled 0-100, where 100=most favourable. These categories are: Labor policy and practice (comprising two sub-categories: Labor policy and labor practice); Access to Finance; Education and training; Women's legal and social status; and the General business environment. Each category or sub-category features either four or five underlying indicators.

The overall score (from 0-100) is calculated from a simple average of the unweighted category and indicator variables. That is, every indicator contributes equally to their parent category and every category contributes equally to the overall score.

EIU note: The criteria used in this study were chosen in close consultation between the Economist Intelligence Unit and panels of experts, mostly in 2009 and 2010. The indicator list was reviewed and revised at an experts meeting held at the offices of UN Women in July 2011.

World Bank classifications include entities: High income (OECD), High income, High income (non-OECD), Upper-middle income, Lower-middle income, Low income, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, East Asia & Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

UN classifications include entities: Europe, Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa.

Retrieved on
March 22, 2018
Retrieved from
https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=weoindex2012
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Economist Intelligence Unit (2012). Women's Economic Opportunity 2012.

The Women's Economic Opportunity (WEO) Index measures five categories to determine whether the environment for both women employees and women entrepreneurs is favourable. Five category scores are calculated from the unweighted mean of underlying indicators and scaled 0-100, where 100=most favourable. These categories are: Labor policy and practice (comprising two sub-categories: Labor policy and labor practice); Access to Finance; Education and training; Women's legal and social status; and the General business environment. Each category or sub-category features either four or five underlying indicators.

The overall score (from 0-100) is calculated from a simple average of the unweighted category and indicator variables. That is, every indicator contributes equally to their parent category and every category contributes equally to the overall score.

EIU note: The criteria used in this study were chosen in close consultation between the Economist Intelligence Unit and panels of experts, mostly in 2009 and 2010. The indicator list was reviewed and revised at an experts meeting held at the offices of UN Women in July 2011.

World Bank classifications include entities: High income (OECD), High income, High income (non-OECD), Upper-middle income, Lower-middle income, Low income, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, East Asia & Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

UN classifications include entities: Europe, Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa.

Retrieved on
March 22, 2018
Retrieved from
https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=weoindex2012
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Economist Intelligence Unit (2012). Women's Economic Opportunity 2012.

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Women's Economic Opportunity Index”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Economist Intelligence Unit. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Economist Intelligence Unit (2012) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Economist Intelligence Unit (2012) – processed by Our World in Data. “Women's Economic Opportunity Index” [dataset]. Economist Intelligence Unit, “Women's Economic Opportunity” [original data]. Retrieved May 17, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/womens-economic-opportunity-2012-index.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear