WEF’S GLOBAL GENDER GAP REPORT

Context:

According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 released by the World Economic Forum, South Asia incidentally is one of the worst performing regions, followed only by the Middle East and northern Africa.

Relevance:

GS-II: Social Justice (Issues Related to Women and Children, Governance and Government Policies, Issues Arising Out of Design & Implementation of Policies)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About the Global Gender Gap Report
2. About World Economic Forum (WEF)
3. Highlights of the Global Gender Gap report 2021
4. India’s Gender Gap according to the Global Gender Gap Report

About the Global Gender Gap Report

• The Global Gender Gap Report is published by the World Economic Forum and The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality.
• The index is designed to “measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in countries rather than the actual levels of the available resources and opportunities in those countries.” Therefore, it is not necessarily true that highly developed countries should have higher scores.
• The methodology used to determine index scores is designed in such a way as to count situations in which men are disadvantaged relative to women as “equal”. (Gender imbalances to the advantage of women do not affect the score.). Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible score is 0 (inequality) – To put it more simply: women could be better off in all areas and still the index would deem that country perfectly equal.

The report’s Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to calculated gender gap between women and men in four key areas to gauge the state of gender equality in a country:

1. Health,
2. Education,
3. Economy and
4. Politics

About World Economic Forum (WEF)

• The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
• It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests.
• The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance.

Major reports published by WEF:

1. Energy Transition Index.
2. Global Competitiveness Report.
3. Global IT Report (WEF along with INSEAD, and Cornell University)
4. Global Gender Gap Report.
5. Global Risk Report.
6. Global Travel and Tourism Report.

Highlights of the Global Gender Gap report 2021

• India has fallen 28 places in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021 and is now ranked 140 among 156 countries.
• India is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, trailing behind neighbours Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
• South Asia incidentally is one of the worst performing regions, followed only by the Middle East and northern Africa.
• In South Asia, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Pakistan 153, Afghanistan 156, Bhutan 130 and Sri Lanka 116.
• The countries with the largest gender gaps in economic participation include Iran, India, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
• Bangladesh is the only country where more women have held head-of-state positions than men in the past 50 years.

India’s Gender Gap according to the Global Gender Gap Report

• India has declined on the political empowerment index as well by 13.5 percentage points, and a decline in the number of women ministers, from more than 20% in 2019 to less than 10% in 2021. However, it has still performed relatively well compared to other countries, ranking at 51 in women’s participation in politics.
• In the index of education attainment, India has been ranked at 114.
• 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 the Economic Participation indicator of gender gap. The report notes that the economic participation gender gap actually widened in India by 3% this year.
• India has fared the worst in Health and Survival index, ranking at 155. (The only country to have fared worse is China.)
• The report says that the skewed sex ratio in India can be attributed to norms of son preference and gender-biased prenatal sex-selective practices.
• China and India together account for about 90 to 95% of the estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million missing female births annually worldwide due to gender-biased prenatal sex selective practices.

-Source: Indian Express