Buried in the rankings din 

Buried in the rankings din 

Context

Article is about the Global Gender Gap report 2017

Miscellaneous

• Improved investor rating: The credit rating company, Moody’s, has upgraded India’s investment ranking from the lowest to one notch up
• Rise in Ease of doing business ranking: India rose 30 spots in “Ease of Doing Business” rankings, from 130 to 100

Global Gender Gap Report

• Published by: World Economic Forum (WEF)
• The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment
• India’s position: India slipped 21 places in this ranking compared to last year, to 108th place, behind neighbors China and Bangladesh

Why did this not generate commensurate analysis and introspection?

Probably because of the belief that the ease of doing business has direct consequences for economic growth and material welfare, whereas gender rankings are more about fairness, equity, or empowerment — warm-glow concepts that are difficult to define and change

Global Gender Gap Index

The Global Gender Gap Index, which was first introduced in 2006, is a combination of four different sub-indices, each summarizing multiple indicators

• Lies b/w 0 & 1:The index lies between 0 and 1, with 1 denoting complete parity
• Focusses on women’s relative position wrt men: It is important to note that this index focuses on gender gaps, and not on whether “women are winning the battle of the sexes”, that is, the focus is on the position of women relative to men (that is, gender equality), rather than to their absolute position (that is, women’s empowerment)
• The idea is to track changes in gender gaps both over time and across countries
• Emphasizes on few key measures: It doesn’t include everything that matters for gender equality, but focuses only on a few key measures. Thus, it should not be seen as a comprehensive text on gender equality, but as a useful pointer or a highlighter of key summary statistics that can be reliably measured and tracked

What does the above table shows?

The table shows the values of the overall index, as well as the four sub-indices, and India’s rank in a set of 144 countries in each of these for 2016 and 2017

Observations: Gender gap worsened

Overall, we see that India’s position has slipped by 21 points despite the fact that the value of the index has fallen marginally. This slide in India’s position reflects that gender gaps in India on these dimensions have worsened, both over time and relative to other countries (that is, other countries have done better)

Components responsible

Author mentions that the two subcomponents of the index that account for this slide over time are

• Economic participation and opportunity: It further includes 3 indicators,
  1. The participation gap (difference in labour force participation between men and women)
  2. The remuneration gap (captured by a hard data statistic of ratio of estimated female-to-male earned income, as well as a qualitative indicator about wage equality for similar work)
  3. The advancement gap (measured through two hard data statistics: Ratio of women to men among legislators, senior officials and managers, and the ratio of women to men among technical and professional workers)
• Political empowerment: This measure identifies gender gaps in the highest level of political decision-making, and includes the ratio of women to men among ministers, among parliamentarians, and in terms of years in executive office (president or prime minister) over the last 50 years

Performance of SE Asia region

South Asia as a region has the second lowest value of the index. In other words, the region is marked by low gender equality

India has worsened in

• Political empowerment, as well as in the share of managers, legislators, technical and professional workers
• It continues to lag behind in terms of gender gaps in the health indicators

India has progressed in

India’s progress in the educational indicators has been good, in that

• It has succeeded in closing the gaps in primary and secondary education enrollment, and has almost closed the gaps in tertiary enrollment as well

Lessons from Bangladesh

In South Asia, Bangladesh has a much better ranking than India at number 47, with lower gender gaps than even the US, which is at number 49. Bangladesh has continued to lower gender gaps on all indicators, defying the usual stereotypes associated with religion and poverty

Significance

What is significant about this particular ranking is that it is compiled by the World Economic Forum, a Swiss organisation, which engages the “foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Could this be because gender gaps matter for business and growth?

Observations

Report states that,

• Losing out on talent: Talent is important for competitiveness and to find the best talent, everyone should have equal opportunity: When women and girls are not integrated, the global community loses out on skills, ideas and perspectives that are critical for addressing global challenges and harnessing new opportunities
• Economic cost of gender gap: An OECD estimate reveals that gender-based discrimination in social institutions could cost up to $12 trillion for the global economy, and that a reduction in gender discrimination can increase the rate of growth of GDP

Conclusion

As we celebrate the rise in the ease of doing business rankings, it is critical to remind ourselves that success and competitiveness of business depends as critically on gender equality, as on tax reforms and infrastructure development.