• The Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum.
  • The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality.
  • The index is designed to “measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in countries rather than the actual level of the available resources and opportunities in those countries.”
  • It is not necessarily true that highly developed countries should have higher scores.
  • The methodology used to determine index scores is designed in such a way as to count situations in which men are disadvantaged relative to women as “equal”.
  • There are four dimensions based on which the Global Gender Index evaluates the performance of the countries:
    • Economic Participation & Opportunity
    • Education Attainment
    • Health and Survival
    • Political Empowerment
  • The report measures women’s disadvantage compared to men and is not a measure of equality of the gender gap.
  • The highest possible score is 1.0 (equality or better for women, except for lifespan (106% or better for women) and gender parity at birth (94.4% or better for women) and the lowest possible score is 0.
World Economic Forum
  • It is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
  • The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.
  • It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
  • It is independent, impartial, and not tied to any special interests.
  • The report aims to serve “as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy, and politics”.
  • Some major reports published by WEF are:
    • Energy Transition Index.
    • Global Competitiveness Report.
    • Global IT Report
      • WEF along with INSEAD, and Cornell University publishes this report.
    • Global Gender Gap Report.
    • Global Risk Report.
    • Global Travel and Tourism Report.

Global Gender Gap Report 2022

  • Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022.
  • India’s overall score has improved from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
    • In 2021, India was ranked 140 out of 156 countries.
  • The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes.
Global Gender Gap Report

What has India Fared on Four Key Dimensions?

  • Political Empowerment (Percentage of Women in Parliament and in Ministerial Positions):
    • India ranks the highest (48th out of 146).
    • Notwithstanding its rank, its score is quite low at 0.267.
      • Some of the best-ranking countries in this category score much better.
      • For instance, Iceland is ranked 1 with a score of 0.874, and Bangladesh is ranked 9 with a score of 0.546.
  • Economic Participation and Opportunity (Percentage of women in labour force, Wage Equality for similar work, Earned income):
    • India ranks a lowly 143 out of the 146 countries in contention even though its score has improved over 2021 from 0.326 to 0.350.
      • In 2021, India was pegged at 151 out of the 156 countries.
    • India’s score is much lower than the global average, and only Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are behind India on this metric.
    • India ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117), and Bhutan (126). Only the performance of Iran (143), Pakistan (145), and Afghanistan(146) were worse than India in South Asia.
  • Educational Attainment (Literacy Rate and the Enrolment rates in Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary education):
    • India ranks 107th out of 146, and its score has marginally worsened since last year.
      • In 2021, India was ranked 114 out of 156.
  • Health and Survival (Sex ratio at birth and Healthy Life Expectancy):
    • India is ranked last (146) among all the countries.
    • Its score hasn’t changed from 2021 when it was ranked 155th out of 156 countries.

Global Findings:

  • Ranking:
    • Iceland has retained its position as the world’s most gender-equal country, among 146 nations on the index.
    • Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden are the top five countries on the list respectively.
    • Afghanistan is the worst-performing country in the report.
  • Scenario:
    • Overall GGG is closed by 68.1%. At the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity.
    • Although no country achieved full gender parity, the top 3 economies closed at least 80% of their gender gaps,
      • Iceland (90.8%)
      • Finland (86%),
      • Norway (84.5%)
    • South Asia will take the longest to reach gender parity, which is estimated to be likely in 197 years.
  • Impact of Covid-19:
    • The progress toward gender parity has been halted and even reversed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
    • Women have borne the brunt of the recession, widely dubbed the ‘secession’, largely because they work in sectors that were most impacted, such as retail and hospitality.
    • The pandemic recession has hit women harder than the 2009 financial crisis impacted male workers.

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