Annual Report Highlights Slow Progress
According to the 2024 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum, it will take another 134 years, or five generations, to close the existing gender gap at the current pace.
Four key parameters assessed
The annual report, first released in 2006, evaluates the gender gap across four critical areas: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. In the 2024 report, India ranks 129th out of 146 countries, dropping two positions from its 2023 rank.
Global gender gap stands at 68.5%
The global gender gap in 2024 is 68.5%, a marginal improvement of just 0.1 percentage point from 2023. The report acknowledges some progress over the past two decades. “The 2024 Global Gender Gap Index shows that while no country has achieved full gender parity, 97% of the economies included in this edition have closed more than 60% of their gap, compared to 85% in 2006,” it states.
Iceland continues to lead the index for the fifteenth consecutive year
Iceland continues to lead the index for the fifteenth consecutive year and is the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap. The report details that the Health and Survival gender gap has closed by 96%, Educational Attainment by 94.9%, Economic Participation and Opportunity by 60.5%, and Political Empowerment by 22.5%.
India, ranked 129th, lags in the South Asian region, ahead of only the Maldives (132) and Pakistan (145), but behind Bangladesh (99), Nepal (117), Sri Lanka (122), and Bhutan (124).
“With a population of over 1.4 billion, India (129th) has closed 64.1% of its gender gap in 2024,” the report notes. This represents a slight regression primarily due to declines in Educational Attainment and Political Empowerment, despite slight improvements in Economic Participation and Opportunity.
Political empowerment and representation
India performs relatively well in the Political Empowerment subindex, scoring within the top 10 for the head-of-state indicator (40.7%). However, women’s representation at the federal level remains low, with only 6.9% in ministerial positions and 17.2% in parliament.