Context: 

India was ranked 127 among 146 countries in gender parity — up eight places from last year’s place — in the Gender Gap Report, 2023 of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

About Global Gender Gap Index:

• It annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity.
• Four Key Dimensions:
  1. Economic Participation and Opportunity
  2. Educational Attainment
  3. Health and Survival
  4. Political Empowerment

• 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. 
• It is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006.

Findings related to India:

• India had improved by 1.4 percentage points from then, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 parity level.
• India was ranked 135 in 2022. India had closed 64.3% of the overall gender gap. 

• Parity in School Enrolment: 
  • India had attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education.
• Economic Parity: 
  • India had reached only 36.7% parity in economic participation and opportunity. 
  • There had been an uptick in parity in wages and income.
  • The share of women in senior positions and technical roles had dropped slightly since the last edition.

• Parity on Political Empowerment: 
  • India has registered 25.3% parity, with women making up 15.1% of MPs. 
  • India is one of the countries with 44.4% that has achieved women’s representation of over 40% in local governance.

• Gender Parity at Birth: 
  • India has achieved gender parity at birth at 92.7%. 
  • The 1.9 percentage point improvement in sex ratio at birth had driven up parity after more than a decade. 

Global rankings

• No country has yet achieved full gender parity.
• Top nine countries: 
  • For the 14th year, Iceland is the most gender-equal country by having closed 91.2% of its gap.
  • Only nine countries have closed at least 80% of their gap: Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia and Lithuania. 

Image Source: The Hindu

News Source: The Hindu