The annual Gender Gap Report, 2023 was released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment).
Key findings
- India was ranked at 127 out of 146 countries in terms of gender parity — an improvement of eight places from last year.
- India was ranked 135 in the report’s 2022 edition. The country had improved by 1.4 percentage points and eight positions since the last edition, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 parity level.
- The country had attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education.
- India had closed 64.3% of the overall gender gap. However, it underlined that India had reached only 36.7 % parity on economic participation and opportunity.
- The index ranked India’s neighbours Pakistan at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103.
- According to the 2023 Global Gender Gap Index no country has yet achieved full gender parity, although the top nine countries (Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia and Lithuania) have closed at least 80% of their gap.
- For the 14th year running, Iceland (91.2%) takes the top position. It also continues to be the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.
- The global top five is completed by three other Nordic countries – Norway (87.9%, 2nd), Finland (86.3%, 3rd) and Sweden (81.5%, 5th) – with one country from East Asia and the Pacific – New Zealand (85.6%, 4th) – ranked 4th.
- In India, while there had been uptick in parity in wages and income, the share of women in senior positions and technical roles had dropped slightly since the last edition, the report pointed out.
- On political empowerment, India has registered 25.3% parity, with women representing 15.1% of parliamentarians — the highest for the country since the inaugural report in 2006.
- Out of the 117 countries with available data since 2017, 18 countries — including Bolivia (50.4%), India (44.4%) and France (42.3 %) — have achieved women’s representation of over 40% in local governance.
