Not one country in all the world has eliminated its economic participation [gender] gap — not one.

The statement underscores the global persistence of gender inequality in the labor market: women’s participation, pay, advancement, and access to economic opportunity lag men’s in every country. By stressing “not one,” it rebukes the idea that the problem is confined to particular regions or levels of development and frames the gap as structural rather than incidental. The bracketed “[gender]” suggests the quote is often excerpted or adapted from a longer formulation about the “economic participation gap,” pointing to widely used international indices that track workforce participation and opportunity. The line functions rhetorically as a call to action: if no nation has fully closed the gap, then all have policy, cultural, and institutional barriers still to dismantle.