Closing the Gap: India long way to go in achieving gender equity
Closing the Gap: India long way to go in achieving gender equity (S. Venkatesan)
January 22, 2007: Gender inequality is a global phenomenon and generally women fare much worse than men in all human development indicators. However, over the years, there were singnificant progresses towards equality. A detailed report “The Global Gender Gap Report 2006” published by the World Economic Forum reveals this trend, indicating the top ten countries in the world – Sweden (1), Norway (2), Finland (3), Iceland (4), Germany (5), the Philippines (6), New Zealand (7), Denmark (8), the United Kingdom (9) and Ireland (10) achieved in closing the gender gap significantly in term of the Gender Gap Index (GGI). India ranked 98th position out of 115 countries, which reflects the country remaining high gender inequality.
The Gender Gap Index (GGI) is an overall measure of men and women in each economy that fairly achieved in economic, social and political aspects of development. The value of GGI range 0 to 1 scale indicating 0 is inequality and 1 is equality. The Index measures the size of the gender gap in four critical areas by measuring with relevant indicators:
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
The European Union (EU) countries generally perform well in the rankings, with 10 EU members, two of which joined in 2004, in the top 20 positions. The United Kingdom (9) and Ireland (10) both show a strong performance. The United Kingdom displays a particularly strong performance on educational attainment, as one of the 11 countries in the world that have fully closed the gender gap in education, and on political empowerment where it ranks 12th out of the 115 countries. Latvia (19) and Lithuania (20) are some of the new EU members that place well ahead of long-time EU members Austria (26) and Belgium (33), but behind Spain (11) and the Netherlands (12). At the other end of the rankings, Greece (69), France (70), Malta (71), Italy (77) and Cyprus (83) have the lowest rankings in the EU, reflecting, in particular, low levels of political participation by women in decision-making bodies and generally poor scores in terms of economic participation and opportunity, although France’s poor performance in these areas is partially offset as it is one of the 11 countries holding the top spot in closing the education gap and one of 34 countries having closed the health gap.
Switzerland (25) ranks behind some of its neighbours such as Germany (5), but well ahead of others such as France (70) and Italy (77). The United States (22) lags behind many European nations in addition to falling behind Canada (14). The United States performs particularly well on economic participation and opportunity (3) and on health (1), sharing the number one spot in this category with 33 other countries, but lags behind on political empowerment (66). Both New Zealand (7) and Australia (15) rank well in closing the gender gap. The Philippines (6) is distinctive as the only Asian country in the top 10.
The report covers all current and candidate European Union countries, 20 from Latin America and the Caribbean, over 20 from sub-Saharan Africa and 10 from the Arab world. Together, the 115 economies cover over 90% of the world’s population. The index mainly uses publicly available "hard data" indicators drawn from international organizations and some qualitative information from the Forum’s own Executive Opinion Survey
In case of India, the country stands at 98th rank out of 115 countries across globe. Among major South Asian counties, Sri Lanka top first scoring value 0.720 followed by Bangladesh (score 0.627) and India. Nepal and Pakistan scored lowest among five counties scoring GGI value 0.548 and 0.543 respectively. Their rankings with global comparisons are: 13th for Sri Lanka, 91 for Bangladesh, 98 for India, 111 for Nepal and 112 for Pakistan. This shows that the Sri Lanka have performed far better in closing the gender gap and even its achievements in gender equity well comparable with developed nations.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2006 includes an innovative new methodology including detailed profiles of each economy that provide insight into the economic, legal and social aspects of the gender gap. The methodology is the result of collaboration between Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, Laura D. Tyson, Dean of the London Business School and Saadia Zahidi, Head of the World Economic Forum’s Women Leaders Programme.
Source: The Global Gender Gap Report 2006, World Economic Forum, December 2006
The report and individual country profiles are available free of charge online at http://www.weforum.org/gendergap