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- World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report 2022: India Ranks 135
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While we have come a long way in addressing gender inequality, there’s still a long way to go. Proving that is the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2022, which ranks India 135 out of 146 countries. On a scale of 0 to 1, we scored a 0.629, which is India’s seventh-highest score in the last 16 years. The Gender Gap Index was first compiled in 2006, and India’s global gender gap score has fluctuated between 0.593 and 0.683 since. Last year, we stood at 0.625, securing a rank of 140 out of 156 countries.
For the uninitiated, gender parity is a statistical measure that gives us an idea of the female to male ratio for different indicators like health, education, or income. Not only is gender parity a useful tool for assessing gender inequality, but it can also be used to being about needed change and progress. As an example, if there are an equal number of women and men who graduated in a specific year, the gender parity ratio for this particular indicator is one. Gender parity value decreases as the difference between women and men increases.
Image: ShutterstockAs per the Global Gender Report 2022, globally, it will take us 132 years to reach gender parity. South Asia is estimated to take 197 years to reach gender parity, which is the longest time. As for India, the country has ranked poorly amongst its neighbours, falling behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126). The only South Asian countries that performed worse than India in are Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146).
That’s still not the worst news; India ranked 146, which is last in the world, in the ‘Health and Survival’ sub-index. The other three key dimensions across which gender parity is marked are economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, and political empowerment, and we scored 143, 107, and 48, respectively in these areas. The good news is that the WEF report notes that our degree of achievement significantly impacts regional rankings, due to the fact that there are about 662 million females in India. On the plus side, the percentage of female managers, legislators, and senior officials, increased from 14.6 to 17.6%, and that of female professionals and technicians rose from 29.2 to 32.9%.
Image: ShutterstockNotably, no country achieved a perfect score or full gender parity, but the top 10 in the list closed 80% of gender gaps. Iceland, at 90.8%, leads the global ranking, and is the only country to close over 90% of its gender gap. Next in the list are Finland (86%), Norway (84.5%), New Zealand (84.1%), Sweden (82.2%), Rwanda (81.1%), Nicaragua (81%), Namibia (80.7%), Ireland (80.4%), Germany (80.1%).
The WEF also noted that progress towards achieving gender parity has been impacted negatively due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with women bearing the brunt of recession given that they work in sectors that were hit the most, like hospitality and retail. At the WEF discussion, Anne Richards, Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity International, said that the COVID-19 recession affected women harder than the 2009 financial crisis hit male workers. Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations, noted that better outcomes can be provided through increasing women’s involvement in decision-making and ensuring equitable participation and leadership for them.
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