Global Gender Gap Report 2021 – UPSC Prelims

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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:
    • Economic Participation and Opportunity
    • Educational Attainment
    • Health and Survival
    • 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.
  • Neighbours: 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.
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