Global Gender Gap Index

The Global Gender Gap Index for 2022 was released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently, and it ranks India at 135 out of 146 countries. In 2021, India was ranked 140 out of 156 countries.

What is the Global Gender Gap Index?

• The Global Gender Gap index “benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment)”.
• According to the WEF it is the longest-standing index, which tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006.
• On each of the four sub-indices as well as on the overall index the GGG index provides scores between 0 and 1, where 1 shows full gender parity and 0 is complete imparity.
• In 2022, India’s overall score has improved from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629. India scored 0.629, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.

How has India fared on different sub-indices?

Here’s how it stands on different sub-indices —

1. Political Empowerment —

• • • This includes metrics such as the percentage of women in Parliament, the percentage of women in ministerial positions etc. Of all the sub-indices, this is where India ranks the highest (48th out of 146).
    • However, 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.
    • Moreover, India’s score on this metric has worsened since last year – from 0.276 to 0.267. The silver lining is that despite reduction, India’s score is above the global average in this category.

2. Economic Participation and Opportunity —

• • • This includes metrics such as the percentage of women who are part of the labour force, wage equality for similar work, earned income etc.
    • Here, too, 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.
    • Last year, India was pegged at 151 out of the 156 countries ranked. India’s score is much lower than the global average, and only Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are behind India on this metric.

3. Educational Attainment — This sub-index includes metrics such as literacy rate and the enrolment rates in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Here India ranks 107th out of 146, and its score has marginally worsened since last year. In 2021, India was ranked 114 out of 156.

4. Health and Survival — This includes two metrics: the sex ratio at birth (in %) and healthy life expectancy (in years). In this metric, India is ranked the last (146) among all the countries. Its score hasn’t changed from 2021 when it was ranked 155th out of 156 countries.