About the Index

• The Global Gender Gap Report is a flagship publication of the World Economic Forum. 

• The report benchmarks the evolution of gender-based gaps in four areas:
  • Economic participation and opportunity,
  • Educational attainment,
  • Health and survival, and
  • Political empowerment.
• It also examines the drivers of gender gaps and outlines the policies and practices needed for a gender-inclusive recovery.

Why in News?

• The World Economic Forum has released its Global Gender Gap Report 2022.
• The index has benchmarked 146 nations across the globe in 2022.

Highlights of the Report

• India ranks 135 among a total of 146 countries in the Index and is the worst performer in the world in the “health and survival” sub-index where it is ranked 146.
• The Report says it will now take 132 years to reach gender parity, with the gap reducing only by four years since 2021 and the gender gap closed by 68.1%.
• But this does not compensate for the generational loss between 2020 and 2021 as the trends leading up to 2020 showed that the gender gap was set to close within 100 years. South Asia will take the longest to reach gender parity, which is estimated to be likely in 197 years.
• India also ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126). Only Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) perform worse than India in south Asia.
• In 2021, India ranked 140 out of a total 156 countries on the index.

4 key dimensions

• India ranks 146 in health and survival, 143 in economic participation and opportunity, 107 in educational attainment and 48th in political empowerment.
• The report notes that India’s score of 0.629 was its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
• India recorded a declining score on political empowerment due to the diminishing share of years women have served as head of state for the past 50 years.

The top 10

• Although no country achieved full gender parity, the top 10 economies closed at least 80% of their gender gaps, with Iceland (90.8%) leading the global ranking. Iceland was the only economy to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.
• Other Scandinavian countries such as Finland (86%, 2nd), Norway (84.5%, 3rd) and Sweden (82.2%, 5th) are in the top five, with other European countries such as Ireland (80.4%) and Germany (80.1%) in ninth and tenth positions, respectively.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-ranks-135-out-of-146-in-global-gender-gap-index/article65636167.ece