India ranked 135th out of 146 countries in gender parity, according to the latest Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum. This is of concern considering India ranked somewhere in the middle, bagging the 87th position worldwide just six years ago, in 2016. India’s gender gap has been widening greatly since 2020, the analysis of the reports showed.

The report assessed countries on four parameters — economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. India had scored strongly in political empowerment in 2016, bagging the ninth position. It slipped to the 48th position on this score in 2022. In other parameters, India’s ranking has not altered too much.

For instance, India ranks at an abysmal 143rd in economic participation, and opportunity in 2022. The situation was not much better in 2016 either, when the rank was 136th, the report said. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey’s 2020-21 annual report, labour force participation rate among Indian women is just 23.15 per cent, in contrast to 57.75 per cent in men. 

In terms of Health and Survival too India scored very low. While the current rank is 143, it was 142 in 2016. “(In this sub-index), , Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are among the worst-performing countries globally. Sex ratio at birth remains relatively low in large, populated countries such as India and Pakistan, whereas Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran and Sri Lanka have reached parity,” the report said, explaining India’s low rank.

In educational attainment, India is now the 107th in the world, while in 2016 it used to be the 113th.

The 2021 report was questioned by the Government of India, where it expressed concerns over the country’s rank, especially in political empowerment. “India’s score in this dimension should be one of the highest in the world as India has provided 30 per cent reservation to women at local self-government level and representation of women in the local self-government bodies is more than 30 per cent at present. However, the publishing agency, World Economic Forum, takes into account representation of women in Parliament only,” Minister Smiriti Irani said in a written reply last year.

The best and the worst

Iceland, Finland and Norway bagged the first three positions, the last two in the list are Pakistan and Afghanistan, bagging the 145th and 146th positions respectively

“The five countries with gender gaps larger than 5 per cent are Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, China and India,” the report noted. This is despite India improving its position compared to 2021 and the report praising an increase in the share of women in professional and technical roles in India​​. It adds, The report added that South East Asian countries will take nearly 200 years to bridge the gender gap.

What lies ahead

“We’ve got nearly 40 other indicators to develop a very complete picture in terms of what is happening on gender gaps. The main purpose is to call governments and businesses that more should be done in terms of closing the gender gap,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum.

Elaborating on the reception that the report may receive, she said, “There is a very clear incentive for governments to be able to do more.” She added that the WEF is now working with nearly 15 countries on a closing the gender gap accelerator projects.

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