June 12th 2024.
On Wednesday, the World Economic Forum released its Global Gender Gap index, which showed that India has slipped two places to rank at 129th place. Despite this decline, Iceland managed to retain its top position in the rankings.
In South Asia, India was ranked fifth, after countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan. Surprisingly, Pakistan was ranked last on the index of 146 countries. This highlights the need for more efforts towards gender equality in these regions.
Globally, Sudan was ranked last, while Pakistan slipped three places to 145th rank. India was also among the economies with the lowest levels of economic parity, along with countries like Bangladesh, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, and Morocco. These countries registered less than 30% gender parity in estimated earned income.
However, there were some positive aspects for India as well. The country showed the best gender parity in terms of enrollment in secondary education and scored well on political empowerment of women, ranking at 65th globally. Additionally, India was ranked 10th in terms of parity in the number of years with female/male heads of state for the last 50 years.
With a population of over 1.4 billion, India has managed to close 64.1% of its gender gap in 2024. However, it slipped two places from its rank of 127th last year, mainly due to small declines in the parameters of 'Educational Attainment' and 'Political Empowerment'. On the other hand, the scores for 'Economic Participation' and 'Opportunity' showed slight improvement.
The WEF also noted that India's economic parity score has been trending upwards for the past four years. However, when it comes to political empowerment, India's scores for women's representation at the federal level, ministerial positions, and in Parliament remain relatively low.
The report also highlighted that despite some progress, the world has only closed 68.5% of the gender gap. At the current pace, it will take another 134 years, equivalent to five generations, to achieve full gender parity. The gender gap has only closed by 0.1 percentage points since last year.
Saadia Zahidi, the Managing Director of WEF, emphasized the need for a renewed global commitment to achieving gender parity, especially in economic and political spheres. She stated that waiting until 2158 for parity is not an option and immediate action is necessary.
The top five countries in the Global Gender Gap index were Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden. The UK was ranked 14th, while the USA was at 43rd place. It is evident that there is still a long way to go in terms of achieving gender equality on a global scale. But with dedicated efforts and a renewed commitment, we can work towards closing this gap and creating a more equal world for all.
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