India was on Wednesday ranked 135 among 146 nations in terms of gender parity by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
According to the annual Gender Gap Report 2022 released in Geneva, India has, however, improved five places since last year on better performance in areas of economic participation and opportunity. Only 11 countries are ranked below India on the index of 146 nations, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Iran and Chad being the worst five.
The WEF warned that the cost-of-living crisis was expected to hit women the hardest globally with a widening gender gap in the labour force and it would take another 132 years (compared to 136 in 2021) to close the gender gap.
On India, the WEF said the country’s gender gap score recorded its seventh-highest level in the last 16 years, but it continued to rank among the worst performers on various parameters. “With a female population of approximately 662 million, India’s level of attainment weighs heavily on regional rankings,” it said.
Recovering ground since 2021, India registered the most significant and positive change to its performance on “economic participation and opportunity”. But, labour-force participation has shrunk for both men and women. The share of women legislators, senior officials and managers increased from 14.6 per cent to 17.6 per cent, and that of women as professional and technical workers grew from 29.2 per cent to 32.9 per cent.
On the health and survival subindex, India ranked the lowest at 146th place and figured among the five countries with gender gaps larger than 5 per cent — the other four being Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and China. However, India was ranked the top globally in terms of gender parity for primary and tertiary education enrolment.
