A Bridge Too Far: India Slips 21 Slots on WEF Gender Gap Index

India continues to rank fourth-lowest in the world on health and survival.

India slipped 21 places on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap.

(Photo: iStock)

India slipped 21 places on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap index to a lowly 108, behind neighbours China and Bangladesh, primarily due to less participation of women in the economy and low wages.

Moreover, India's latest ranking is 10 notches lower than in 2006 when the WEF started measuring the gender gap.

According to the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2017, India has closed 67 percent of its gender gap, less than many of its international peers, and some of its neighbours like Bangladesh ranked 47th while China was placed at 100th.

Globally also, this year's story is a bleak one. For the first time since the WEF began measuring the gap across four pillars – health, education, the workplace and political representation – the global gap has actually widened.

Also Read: India’s Gender Wage Gap: 7 Charts to Prove Feminists Aren’t Lying

Global gender gap score for India.(Photo Courtesy: World Economic Forum)

India’s ranking on several parameters.(Photo Courtesy: World Economic Forum)

100 Years Till Women Have Same Chances as Men

In recent years, women have made significant progress towards equality in a number of areas such as education and health, with the Nordic countries leading the fray.

But the global trend now seems to have made a U-turn, especially in workplaces, where full gender equality is not expected to materialise until 2234, WEF said in a report.

"A decade of slow but steady progress on improving parity between the sexes came to a halt in 2017, with the global gender gap widening for the first time since the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006," it said.

The report said that at the current rate of progress, it would now take a full 100 years on average to achieve overall gender equality. The estimated time needed to ensure full equality in the workplace meanwhile has jumped from 80 years in 2014 to 170 years last year to 217 years now, according to the report.

Also Read: Equal Pay For Men and Women Won’t Be a Reality for Next 170 Years

Distance from gender parity 2017.(Photo Courtesy: World Economic Forum)

Global Gender Gap Numbers

At the top of the Global Gender Gap Index is Iceland. The country has closed nearly 88 percent of its gap. It has been the world's most gender-equal country for nine years.

Others in the top 10 include Norway (2nd), Finland (3rd), Rwanda (4) and Sweden (5), Nicaragua (6) and Slovenia (7), Ireland (8), New Zealand (9) and the Philippines (10).

India’s greatest challenges lie in the economic participation and opportunity pillar where the country is ranked 139 as well as health and survival pillar where the country is ranked 141, the WEF said.

The report attributed much of India's decline in position on the overall Global Gender Gap Index to a widening of its gender gaps in political empowerment as well as healthy life expectancy and basic literacy.

Also Read: Move Over India: Gender Equality in Politics is a Global Farce

India’s Case

In India, the workplace gender gap is reinforced by extremely low participation of women in the economy (136 out of the total 144 countries covered) and low wages for those who work (136th ranking for estimated earned income), the WEF said, adding that "on average, 66 per cent of women's work in India is unpaid, compared to 12 per cent of men's".

On a positive note, India succeeded in fully closing its primary and secondary education enrolment gender gaps for the second year running and for the first time has nearly closed its tertiary education gender gap. However, it continues to rank fourth-lowest in the world on health and survival, remaining the world's least-improved country on this sub-index over the past decade, the WEF stated.