The world may not achieve gender equality for another 131 years, said the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report 2023, on Wednesday (June 21). In other words, given the rate of incredibly slow progress, women may not attain parity with men until 2154. This comes as the report found that the gap between various aspects it takes into account for the measurement of equality has closed only by 0.3 per cent since last year.
What is the report about?
The WEF’s Gender Gap Index measures equality across 146 countries along four dimensions, economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment. The index was first launched by the WEF in 2006 and since then parity has advanced 4.1 percentage points.
WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023: Key findings
The report shows that the world would take 131 years to close the overall gender gap between men and women at the current rate of progress.
Additionally, it might take 169 years for economic parity and 162 years for political empowerment to gender gap but no clear timeline was given for health and survival. On the bright side, educational attainment parity might take 16 years.
While no country has achieved full gender parity, the top nine countries – Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia and Lithuania – have managed to close the gender gap by at least 80 per cent.
Iceland was at the top of the list for the 14th consecutive year with 91.2 per cent of its overall gender gap closed. Notably, it is also the only country with a score which is above 90 per cent. It is followed by Norway (87.9 per cent), Finland (86.3 per cent), New Zealand (85.6 per cent), and Sweden (81.5 per cent) all with scores above 80 per cent.
In addition to the top five countries, only four nations – Germany (81.5 per cent), Nicaragua (81.1 per cent), Namibia (80.2 per cent) and Lithuania (80.0 per cent) – have managed to close their gender gap by at least 80 per cent.
In terms of overall gender parity, the Southern Asian region ranked second-lowest of the eight regions with 63.4 per cent. However, the score has risen 1.1 percentage points since last year’s report which has partially been attributed to better rankings of countries including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, the United States witnessed a drop from 27th on the list with 76.9 per cent parity in 2022 to 43rd this year with a parity score of 74.8 per cent. The sharp decline has been attributed to the political empowerment index.
The last five countries on the list – Pakistan (57.5 per cent), Iran (57.5 per cent), Algeria (57.3 per cent), Chad (57.0 per cent), and Afghanistan (40.5 per cent) – have scored below 60 per cent.
Afghanistan was the only one among the last five as well as among the 146 nations with a score below 50 per cent.
What has the overall gender gap been attributed to?
“Global gender gaps in health and education have narrowed over the past year, yet progress on political empowerment is effectively at a standstill, and women’s economic participation has regressed rather than recovered,” Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the WEF, stated in the report.
Addressing the findings of the report, she also said, “Recent years have been marked by major setbacks for gender parity globally, with previous progress disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on women and girls in education and the workforce, followed by economic and geopolitical crises”.
She added, “Today, some parts of the world are seeing partial recoveries while others are experiencing deteriorations as new crises unfold.” Therefore, the “tepid progress” on “persistently large gaps documented (in the report)…creates an urgent case for renewed and concerted action.”
India ranks 127 out of 146 in gender parity
This year India ranked 127th out of 146 countries which is an improvement of eight positions since last year’s report. The country has closed 64.3 per cent of the overall gender gap, said the 2023 report. According to the report, India has “attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education” but has only reached about 36.7 per cent parity on economic participation and opportunity.
This comes as the report noted upticks in parity in wages and income but a slight drop in “shares of women in senior positions and technical roles” since last year. India was also listed among countries like Pakistan (36.2 per cent), Iran (34.4 per cent), and Algeria (31.7 per cent), aside from Afghanistan, at the bottom of the list for economic participation and opportunity with less than 40 per cent parity.
On the political front, India has reached 25.3 per cent parity, with women representing 15.1 per cent of parliamentarians. Notably, this is the highest for India since the first report was published nearly two decades ago.
Notably, out of the 117 countries for which the data is available since 2017, 18 countries including Bolivia (50.4 per cent), India (44.4 per cent) and France (42.3 per cent) – have achieved women’s representation of over 40 per cent in local governance.
This comes after Indian Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, earlier this year, raised an issue with the WEF in Geneva saying that the organisation must also include women’s participation in local government bodies in its report.
On the health and survival index, the WEF has noted 1.9 percentage points to 92.7 per cent improvement in the sex ratio at birth after “more than a decade of slow progress” for India. The relatively low overall rankings for countries like India, China and Vietnam for this particular index “is explained by skewed sex ratios at birth,” said the report.
“Compared to top scoring countries that register a 94.4 per cent gender parity at birth, the indicator stands at 92.7 per cent for India (albeit an improvement over last edition) and below 90 per cent for Viet Nam, China and Azerbaijan,” the report stated.
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