Global Gender Gap Index 2020: WEF
India has been ranked 112th among 153 countries in the annual Global Gender Gap Index for 2020, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- The WEF published its first gender gap index in 2006.
- The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions:
- Economic Participation and Opportunity,
- Educational Attainment,
- Health and Survival and
- Political Empowerment
- Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible score is 0 (inequality).
- The Index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics. Through this annual yardstick, the stakeholders within each country are able to set priorities relevant in each specific economic, political and cultural context.
India- Specific Findings
- India has slipped to the 112th spot from its 108th position in the last edition. India was ranked relatively higher at 98th place in 2006 Report.
- India has been ranked below countries like China (106th), Sri Lanka (102nd), Nepal (101st), Brazil (92nd), Indonesia (85th) and Bangladesh (50th).
- Performance on Four Indicators: India has improved to 18th place on political empowerment but it has slipped to 150th on health and survival, to 149th in terms of economic participation and opportunity and to 112th place for educational attainment.
- Economic
- Among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap (0.354) is larger than the political gender gap (0.411).
- India is among the countries with very low women representation on company boards (13.8%), while it was even worse in China (9.7%).
- On health and survival, four large countries — Pakistan, India, Vietnam and China — fare badly with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.