Global Gender Gap Index, 2022

What is the Global Gender Gap Index(GGGI)?

• The index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions 

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity- This includes metrics such as the percentage of women who are part of the labour force, wage equality for similar work, earned income etc.
2. Educational Attainment-This sub-index includes metrics such as literacy rate and the enrolment rates in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
3. Health and Survival-This includes two metrics: the sex ratio at birth (in %) and healthy life expectancy (in years).
4. Political Empowerment-This includes metrics such as the percentage of women in Parliament, the percentage of women in ministerial positions etc.  

• According to the WEF it is the longest-standing index, which tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006.
• On each of the four sub-indices as well as on the overall index the GGG index provides scores between 0 and 1, where 1 shows full gender parity and 0 is complete imparity. 
• Its cross-country comparisons aim to support the identification of the most effective policies to close gender gaps.

World Rankings-

• As per the index,  it will now take 132 years to reach gender parity, with the gap reducing only by four years since 2021 and the gender gap closed by 68.1%. 
• But this does not compensate for the generational loss between 2020 and 2021 as the trends leading up to 2020 showed that the gender gap was set to close within 100 years. 
• South Asia will take the longest to reach gender parity, which is estimated to be likely in 197 years.
• Although no country achieved full gender parity, the top 10 economies closed at least 80% of their gender gaps, with Iceland (90.8%) leading the global ranking. 
• Iceland was the only economy to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap. 
• Other Scandinavian countries such as Finland (86%, 2nd), Norway (84.5%, 3rd) and Sweden (82.2%, 5th) are in the top five, with other European countries such as Ireland (80.4%) and Germany (80.1%) in ninth and tenth positions, respectively. 
• Sub-Saharan African countries Rwanda (81.1%, 6th) and Namibia (80.7%, 8th), along with one Latin American country, Nicaragua (81%, 7th), and one country from east Asia and the Pacific, New Zealand (84.1%, 4th), also take positions in the top 10.

India’s ranking-

• India ranks 135 among a total of 146 countries in the GGGI 2022.

• India has approximately 662 million (or 66.2 crore) women. In 2022, India’s overall score has improved from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629. 
• India’s (135th) global gender gap score has oscillated between 0.593 and 0.683 since the index was first compiled. 
• In 2022, India scored 0.629, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 yearst.
• India also “recovered” ground since 2021 in economic participation and opportunity though the report goes on to add that the labour force participation shrunk for both men (by -9.5 percentage points) and women (-3 percentage points). 
• The gender parity score for estimated earned income improved because even though the values for both men and women diminished, the decline was more for men. 
• India recorded a declining score on political empowerment due to the diminishing share of years women have served as head of state for the past 50 years.
• India also ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126). 
• Only Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) perform worse than India in south Asia.