Global Gender Gap Index

About Gender Gap Report and Index

• The Global Gender Gap Report is published by the World Economic Forum.
• The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality.
• Globally, Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden are the world’s most gender-equal countries, the report added.

What are the parameters considered?

The report examines four overall areas of inequality between men and women:

1. Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment.
2. Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
3. Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio.

India’s performance

• India has fallen 28 spots to rank 140th among 156 countries on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index.
• In 2020, India had ranked 112th among 153 countries on the index.
• The report showed that South Asia was the lowest performer on the index after West Asia and North Africa.
• Within the region, the best-performing country is Bangladesh, which has closed 71.9% of its gender gap so far while Afghanistan, which has only closed 44.4% of its gap  is the worst performer.
• India is the third-worst performer in the region, after Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Prelims Question

Global Gender Gap index is published by:
(a)United Nations General Assembly
(b)World Economic forum
(c)UN development program
(d)World Bank

Answer to the Prelims Question