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GENDER
last year. However, the economic op-
portunity gap has worsened, widening
to 257 years, compared to 202 years last
year. The report said one of the greatest
challenges to closing this gap is women’s
under-representation in emerging roles,
such as cloud computing, engineering
and data and AI. The WEF had published
its first gender gap report in 2006, when
India was ranked relatively higher at the political one. Only “ en are literate compared with 82 per cent
98th place. Since then, India’s rank has
worsened on three of four metrics used
for the overall ranking. While India has
improved to 18th place on political em-
powerment, it has slipped to 150th on
health and survival, to 149th in terms of
economic participation and opportu- Since 2006, the gap has
nity and to 112th place for educational significantly widened and
attainment.
India is the only country
he WEF said economic opportu- among the 153 countries
nities for women are extremely
T limited in India (35.4 per cent), studied where the economic
Pakistan (32.7 per cent), Yemen (27.3 per
cent), Syria (24.9 per cent) and Iraq (22.7
per cent). It also named India among
countries with very low women repre-
sentation on company boards (13.8 per one-quarter of women,
cent), while it was even worse in China compared with 82% of
(9.7 per cent).
On health and survival, four large men, engage actively in
countries — Pakistan, India, Viet Nam the labour market — one of
and China — fare badly with millions of
women there not getting the same ac- the lowest rates globally.
cess to health as men, the WEF said. It Furthermore, the female
also flagged abnormally low sex ratios at
birth in India (91 girls for every 100 boys) estimated earned income is
and Pakistan (92/100). The WEF said In- mere one-fifth of the male ments in women in senior roles in the
dia has closed two-thirds of its overall
gender gap, but the condition of women
in large fringes of India’s society is pre-
carious and the economic gender gap
runs particularly deep.
Since 2006, the gap has significantly gender gap is larger than “ the world. For business, too, diversity will
widened and India is the only country
among the 153 countries studied where
the economic gender gap is larger than
the political one. Only one-quarter of
women, compared with 82 per cent of
men, engage actively in the labour mar-
ket — one of the lowest rates globally
(145th). Furthermore, the female estimat-
ed earned income is mere one-fifth of the
male income, again among the world’s
lowest (144th).
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Women account for only 14 per cent
of leadership roles (136th) and 30 per
cent of professional and technical work-
ers. “Violence, forced marriage and dis-
crimination in access to health remain
pervasive. The situation and the trend are
more positive in terms of gender gaps in
education... But a large difference persists
for literacy rate; only two-thirds of wom-
of men,” WEF said.
India ranks high on the political em-
powerment sub-index, largely because
the country was headed by a woman for
20 of the past 50 years. But, female politi-
cal representation today is low as women
make up only 14.4 per cent of Parliament
(122nd rank globally) and 23 per cent of
the cabinet (69th), the report said. Nor-
dic countries continue to lead the way to
gender parity and Iceland is followed by
Norway, Finland and Sweden in the top-
four. In the top-10, they are followed by
Nicaragua, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain,
Rwanda and Germany.
The WEF said one positive develop-
ment is the possibility that a ‘role model
effect’ may be starting to have an im-
pact in terms of leadership and possibly
also wages. “For example, in eight of the
top-10 countries this year, high political
empowerment corresponds with high
numbers of women in senior roles. Com-
paring changes in political empower-
ment from 2006 to 2019 shows that im-
provements in political representation
occurred simultaneously with improve-
labour market,” the report said.
WEF’s Founder and Executive Chair-
man Klaus Schwab said, “Supporting gen-
der parity is critical to ensuring strong,
cohesive and resilient societies around
be an essential element to demonstrate
that stakeholder capitalism is the guiding
principle.” The issue of gender gap is like-
ly to be among key focus areas for discus-
sion next month at the annual meeting of
the WEF in Davos, Switzerland. The WEF
said it is has committed to at least double
the current percentage of women par-
ticipants at the Davos summit by 2030.
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