India slips 21 slots on WEF Gender Gap index 2017
Context- India slipped 21 places on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap index to 108, behind neighbours China and Bangladesh.
Important points of the report-1. The loss in ranking of India is primarily due to less participation of women in the economy and low wages.
2. India’s latest ranking is 10 notches lower than its reading in 2006 when the WEF started measuring the gender gap.
3. According to the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2017, India has closed 67% of its gender gap, less than many of its international peers, and some of its neighbours like Bangladesh ranked 47th while China was placed at 100th.
4. A decade of slow but steady progress on improving parity between the sexes came to a halt in 2017, with the global gender gap widening.
An overall 68% of the global gender gap has been closed. This is a slight deterioration from 2016 when the gap closed was 68.3%.
5. At the current rate of progress, the global gender gap will take 100 years to bridge, compared to 83 last year.
6. On a positive note, however, a number of countries are bucking the dismal global trend as over one-half of all 144 countries measured this year have seen their score improve in the past 12 months.
7. At the top of the Global Gender Gap Index is Iceland. The country has closed nearly 88% of its gap. It has been the world’s most gender-equal country for nine years.
Others in the top 10 include Norway (2nd), Finland (3rd), Rwanda (4) and Sweden (5), Nicaragua (6) and Slovenia (7), Ireland (8), New Zealand (9) and the Philippines (10).
8.What did report say about India?- a.India’s greatest challenges lie in the economic participation and opportunity pillar where the country is ranked 139 as well as health and survival pillar where the country is ranked 141.
b.The report attributed much of India’s decline in position on the overall Global Gender Gap Index to a widening of its gender gaps in political empowerment as well as healthy life expectancy and basic literacy.
c.The scale of India’s gender gap in women’s share among legislators, senior officials and managers as well as professional and technical workers highlights that continued efforts will be needed to achieve parity in economic opportunity and participation.
d. In India, the workplace gender gap is reinforced by extremely low participation of women in the economy (136 out of the total 144 countries covered) and low wages for those who work (136th ranking for estimated earned income).
e. On a positive note, India succeeded in fully closing its primary and secondary education enrolment gender gaps for the second year running and for the first time has nearly closed its tertiary education gender gap.
f.However, it continues to rank fourth-lowest in the world on health and survival, remaining the world’s least-improved country on this sub-index over the past decade, the WEF stated.
- WEF is measuring the gap across four pillars — health, education, the workplace and political representation — the global gap has actually widened.