World Economic Forum’s (WEF) released Global Gender Gap index 2024 on 12 June.
Key points
- India has slipped two places on to 129th place in the index. Iceland retained its top position in the rankings.
- Within South Asia, India was ranked fifth after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, while Pakistan was ranked last. Globally, Sudan was ranked last on the index of 146 countries.
- India showed the best gender parity in terms of enrolment in secondary education, while it scored well on political empowerment of women at 65th rank globally.
- With regard to parity in the number of years with female/male heads of state for the last 50 years, India was ranked 10th.
- With a population of more than 140 crore, India has closed 64.1% of its gender gap in 2024 and the decline of two places from 127th last year, mainly happened due to small declines in ‘Educational Attainment’ and ‘Political Empowerment,’ parameters, while ‘Economic Participation’ and ‘Opportunity’ scores slightly improved.
- The world has closed 68.5% of the gender gap, but at the current pace it will take another 134 years to achieve full gender parity.
- 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).
- It is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006.
