Topics Covered: Women related issues.
WEF’s global gender gap report:
Context:
World Economic Forum has released the Global Gender Gap Report 2021.
India specific findings:
- Overall Ranking: India has fallen 28 places- it is now ranked 140 among 156 countries.
- Among Neighbours: It is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, trailing behind neighbours Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
- Political empowerment: India has declined on the political empowerment index as well by 13.5 percentage points.
- In the index of education attainment, India has been ranked at 114.
- India has fared the worst on “Health and Survival”, which includes the sex ratio, and economic participation of women.
- The estimated earned income of women in India is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator.
Global Scenario:
- For the 12th time, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world.
- The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.
- Many countries have fared worse in this year’s rankings compared to last year’s, on account of economic performance.
- The gender gap in political empowerment remains the largest: women represent only 26.1 per cent of some 35,500 parliament seats and just 22.6 per cent of over 3,400 ministers worldwide.
- In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of state, as of January 15, 2021.
- Bangladesh is “the only country where more women have held head-of-state positions than men in the past 50 years.
- The countries with the largest gender gaps in economic participation include Iran, India, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
About the Global Gender Gap Report:
First published in 2006.
It benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions:
- Economic Participation and Opportunity,
- Educational Attainment,
- Health and Survival and
- Political Empowerment.
Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible score is 0 (inequality).
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- About the Gender Gap Report.
- How are countries ranked?
- India’s performance.
- India and neighbours.
- Global Scenario.
Mains Link:
Comment on India’s performance in the latest Global Gender Gap Report.
Sources: the Hindu.