India has slipped two places on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap index to 129th place, while Iceland retained its top position in the rankings published on June 12.

What is the Global Gender Gap Index?

• The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions.

They are:

i) Economic Participation and Opportunity

ii) Educational Attainment

iii) Health and Survival

iv) Political Empowerment. 

• It is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time, since its inception in 2006.

• The Global Gender Gap Index measures scores on a 0 to 100 scale and scores can be interpreted as the distance covered towards parity, that is the percentage of the gender gap that has been closed. 

• Cross-country comparisons support the identification of the most effective policies to close gender gaps. 

Objectives of the Index:

• To serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics.

• Through this annual yardstick, the stakeholders within each country are able to set priorities relevant in each specific economic, political and cultural context.

What are the key findings?

• Within South Asia, India was ranked fifth after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, while Pakistan was ranked last. 

• Globally, Sudan was ranked last on the index of 146 countries, while Pakistan slipped three places to 145th.

• India figured among the economies with the lowest levels of economic parity, alongside Bangladesh, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, and Morocco. 

• All of them registered less than 30 per cent gender parity in estimated earned income.

• However, India showed the best gender parity in terms of enrolment in secondary education, while it scored well on political empowerment of women at 65th rank globally. With regard to parity in the number of years with female/male heads of state for the last 50 years, India was ranked 10th.

• With a population of more than 140 crore, India has closed 64.1 per cent of its gender gap in 2024 and the decline of two places from 127th last year, mainly happened due to small declines in ‘Educational Attainment’ and ‘Political Empowerment’, parameters, while ‘Economic Participation’ and ‘Opportunity’ scores slightly improved. 

• In the Political Empowerment sub-index, India scored within the top-10 on the head-of-state indicator, but its scores for women’s representation at the federal level, in ministerial positions (6.9 per cent) and in Parliament (17.2 per cent), remain relatively low.

Top ranking countries: 

• Overall, Iceland topped this year’s list as the most gender-equal country in the world, while Finland and Norway followed next.

• The United Kingdom ranked 14, Denmark 15, South Africa 18. 

• The United States ranked 43, Italy 87, Israel 91, South Korea 94, and Bangladesh at 99.

• Considering the set of 101 countries continuously covered since 2006, the gender gap has closed by 0.1 percentage point since 2023, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024.

• The WEF said the world has closed 68.5 per cent of the gender gap, but at the current pace it will take another 134 years — equivalent to five generations — to achieve full gender parity. Since last year, the gender gap has closed by 0.1 percentage points.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)