 "Gender Gap index: Indian women earn Rs 40 for every Rs 100 earned by men")
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index data released on Wednesday showed that India has slipped two spots to rank at 129 out of the 146 nations in the list.
War-torn Sudan has replaced Afghanistan to stand at the last rank as the Taliban ruled Islamic nation was not covered in this year’s data. Besides, Afghanistan, Malawi, Myanmar and Russia were also not covered.
Within south Asia, Pakistan showed the poorest performance while Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan were ranked ahead of India.
Indian women earn Rs 40 for every Rs 100 men earn
India also figured among the group of nations to have one of the lowest level economic gender parity. India’s economic parity stood at 39.8 per cent. This means that women in India on an average earn Rs 39.8 for every Rs 100 that men earn.
The report also noted that India has closed 64.1 per cent of its gender gap in 2024. While India’s economic parity score has been improving, it needs to increase by 6.2 percentage points to return to its 2012 level of 46 per cent, the report says.
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Bangladesh has the lowest level of economic gender parity at 31.1 per cent.
Besides these two, the lowest levels of economic gender parity were also observed in Sudan: 33.7 per cent; Iran: 34.3 per cent; Pakistan 36 per cent, and Morocco: 40.6 per cent.
“These economies all register less than 30 per cent gender parity in estimated earned income,” the report said, noting that bridging the gap in the economic participation and opportunity between men and women is the second biggest hurdle in dealing with the global gender gap.
The economies where economic gender parity is highest include Liberia with 87.4 per cent and Botswana: 85.4 per cent among others. The report highlighted that these nations have a 95 per cent or above labour-force participation of women.
Iceland scores top rank
Overall, Iceland topped this year’s list as the most gender-equal country in the world, while Finland and Norway followed next. The United Kingdom ranked 14, Denmark 15, South Africa 18. The United States ranked 43, Italy 87, Israel 91, South Korea 94, and Bangladesh at 99.
Considering the set of 101 countries continuously covered since 2006, the gender gap has closed by 0.1 percentage point since 2023, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024.
At the current rate of progress, it will take 134 years to reach full parity in 2158 – which is roughly five generations from now.