WEF released “Global Gender Gap Report 2021”

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WEF releases the Global Gender Gap Report 2021.

About Global Gender Gap Report:

• The World Economic Forum(WEF) publishes the Global Gender Gap Report annually since 2006.
• Parameters: The report ranks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions. Namely,
  1. Economic Participation and Opportunity
  2. Educational Attainment
  3. Health and Survival
  4. Political Empowerment.

Findings of Global Gender Gap Report 2021 related to India:

• Ranking: India’s ranking on the Index drops 28 places to 140 amongst the 156 nations. In 2020, India was ranked at 112th place in the report.
• Gender Gap: India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap to date. However, the gender gap increased by 4.2% compared to 2020. This explains why India has fallen 28 places in the ranking.
• India is the third-worst performer in the South Asia region. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan rank below India in this region.

Reasons for India’s decline in Global Gender Gap Report 2021:

• Political Empowerment: Most of the decline occurred on political empowerment. India declined by 13.5% points with a significant reduction in the number of women ministers (from 23.1% in 2019 to 9.1% in 2021).
• Economic Participation and Opportunity: It has also declined due to a decrease in women’s labour force. The women’s estimated earned income is only one-fifth of men’s. This puts India amongst the bottom 10 global performers on this indicator.
• Health and Survival: India ranks amongst the bottom five countries in this due to:
  • High incidence of gender based sex-selective practices.
  • More than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.
• Educational Attainment: The gender gap in education has improved in primary, secondary and tertiary education. However, gender gaps still persist in terms of literacy. One-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) compared to 17.6% of men.

Other Key Findings of Global Gender Gap Report 2021:

• Topped by: Iceland continued to top the index in 2021. It was followed by Finland and Norway. Afghanistan was at the last position at 156.
• Neighbors: Amongst India’s Neighbours, Bangladesh is ranked at 65, Nepal at 106, Pakistan at 153, Afghanistan at 156, Bhutan at 130, and Sri Lanka at 116.
• South Asia was the lowest performer on the index after West Asia and North Africa. Only Bhutan and Nepal had shown progress towards gender parity in 2021 in this region.

Source: Hindu Business line