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Women in predominantly Muslim countries are struggling to compete for jobs, win equal pay and hold political office, falling behind the rest of the world in eliminating discrimination, according to a report issued Thursday by the World Economic Forum.

Nordic countries, by contrast, received the best overall grades for gender parity in education, employment, health and politics, according to the review of 128 countries.

Canada, like the United States, received mixed marks.

Overall, Canada's score on the categories studied improved slightly, but that was not enough to prevent its slipping to 18th from 14th spot in the world ranking.

The United States finished in 31st spot down eight places from last year.

Based on a scale in which perfect equality was assigned a score of 1.0, Canada achieved an overall mark of 0.72.

That included almost perfect marks in the categories of educational attainment (0.999) and health and survival (0.979).

But it scored lower on economic participation and opportunity (0.74) and much lower (0.159) on political empowerment, with women making up only 21 per cent of MPs and 23 per cent of cabinet posts in Parliament.

Sweden, which has more women than men holding high political office, topped the list, followed by fellow Nordic nations Norway, Finland and Iceland.

New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Spain round out the top 10.

“The purpose of the rankings is to bring out where a country stands in terms of dividing the resources that are available between women and men,” said Saadia Zahidi, one of the report's three co-authors.

Ms. Zahidi said religious and cultural reasons are important in understanding why men have economic, political, education and health advantages over women in much of the world.

Former Soviet states with a Muslim majority, such as Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, were in the middle of the field, but nearly all countries in the Middle East placed in the bottom third.

Pakistan, Chad and Yemen were at the bottom.

Women living on the Arabian peninsula receive nearly as much education and health benefits as men there, Ms. Zahidi said, “but they're held back on political participation and economic empowerment.”

The annual study does not take into account a country's overall level of economic development. For example, women in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Cuba and Lesotho all fared better – relatively speaking – than women in industrialized countries such as Japan, Switzerland and the United States.

The United States scored lower because the percentage of female legislators, senior officials and managers fell in 2007, and the pay gap between women and men widened, the report said.

The world's most populous countries – China and India – were hurt in the study by the preference of many parents for boys, which has led to abortions and infanticide being directed primarily against girls.