India positions at 135 in the Global Gender Gap Index

India has ranked at 135th place out of 146 countries, in terms of gender parity, on the annual Gender Gap Report 2022 of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Iceland retained its place as the world’s most gender-equal country, followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden.

The report studies gender parity across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.

The report notes that India has registered the most significant and positive change to its performance on the “economic participation and opportunity” dimension. But labour-force participation shrunk for both men, by - 9.5 percentage points and women, by - 3 percentage points.

The WEF report said that the cost of living crisis is expected to hit women hardest globally with a widening gender gap in the labour force. It will take another 132 years (compared to 136 in 2021) to close the gender gap.

India ranked the lowest at 146th place on the health and survival subindex. India was ranked the top globally in terms of gender parity for primary education enrolment and tertiary education enrolment and at the eighth place for the position of head of state.

Within South Asia, India was ranked the sixth best on overall score after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan. South Asia (62.3%) has the largest gender gap of all regions, with low scores across all measured gender gaps and little progress made in most countries since 2021.

WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi said, “The cost of living crisis is impacting women disproportionately after the shock of labour market losses during the pandemic and the continued inadequacy of care infrastructure. In face of a weak recovery, government and business must make two sets of efforts: targeted policies to support women’s return to the workforce and women’s talent development in the industries of the future. Otherwise, we risk eroding the gains of the last decades permanently and losing out on the future economic returns of diversity.”