The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released the “Global Gender Gap Report” for 2022. It is the longest-standing index, which tracks progress toward closing gender gaps over time since its first release in 2006. The report assesses nations on how well they are splitting the resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the levels of these resources and opportunities.
About the Global Gender Gap Report 2022
- WEF published the 16th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index on 13 July 2022.
- The Global Gender Gap Index 2022 benchmarks 146 countries, providing a basis for robust cross-country analysis.
- The Index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions:
- Economic Participation and Opportunity.
- Educational Attainment.
- Health and Survival.
- Political Empowerment.
- On each of the four sub-indices and overall index, the Global Gender Gap Index provides scores between 0 and 1, where ‘1’ shows full gender parity and ‘0’ is complete imparity.
- The cross-country comparisons aim to support the identification of the most effective policies to close gender gaps.
India’s Performance in 2022 Index
India ranked 135 in gender parity out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report 2022. It has improved over its 140th position out of 156 countries in 2021.
India’s overall score had improved from 0.625 in 2021 to 0.629 in 2022, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
| Index | Rank (in 2022) | Score (in 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Global Gender Gap Index | 135 | 0.629 |
- On Economic Participation and Opportunity: This indicator includes metrics such as the percentage of women in the labour force, wage equality for similar work, and Earned income.
- India’s score is much lower than the global average on this sub-index.
- India ranks a lowly 143 among 146 countries on Economic Participation and Opportunity.
- Its score improved from 0.326 in 2021 to 0.350 in 2022.
- On Educational Attainment: This sub-index includes metrics such as Literacy rate and Enrolment Rates in Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary education.
- In 2022, India ranked at 107th position out of 146 countries.
- But, its score has marginally worsened since last year. In 2021, India ranked 114 out of 156 on Educational Attainment.
- On Health and Survival: This dimension includes metrics like Sex ratio at birth and Healthy Life Expectancy.
- In this sub-index, India ranked last at 146th position among all countries.
- On Political Empowerment: This sub-index includes metrics such as the percentage of women in Parliament and Ministerial positions.
- Of all the sub-indices, this is where India ranks highest at 48th position in the 2022 index.
| Sub-index | Rank (in 2022) | Score (in 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Economic participation and opportunity | 143 | 0.350 |
| Educational attainment | 107 | 0.961 |
| Health and survival | 146 | 0.937 |
| Political empowerment | 48 | 0.267 |
Key Findings of the Report
In 2022, the Global Gender Gap has been closed by 68.1%. At the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full gender parity.
As the 2022 index covers 146 countries, the Health and Survival gender gap has closed by 95.8%, Educational Attainment by 94.4%, Economic Participation and Opportunity by 60.3%, and Political Empowerment by 22%.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top 10 countries in the 2022 index have closed at least 80% of their gender gaps.
Top 10 performer
- Iceland, leading the global ranking by closing the gender gap by 90.8%, remains the only country to have close more than 90% of its gender gap.
- Other Scandinavian countries, such as Finland, ranked 2nd by closing the gender gap by 86%, Norway at 3rd by 84.5%, and Sweden at 5th by 82.2%.
- One country from East Asia and the Pacific, New Zealand, ranked 4th by closing 84.1% of its gender gap, also takes positions in the top 10.
- African countries, Rwanda ranked 6th by closing 81.1% gender gap and Namibia at 8th with 80.7%.
- American country, Nicaragua, takes 7th position and closes 81% of its gender gap.
- European countries like Ireland rank in 9th position by completing gender gap by 80.4% and Germany in 10th position by 80.1%.
| Rank | Countries | GGGI score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iceland | 0.908 |
| 2 | Finland | 0.860 |
| 3 | Norway | 0.845 |
| 4 | New Zealand | 0.841 |
| 5 | Sweden | 0.822 |
| 6 | Rwanda | 0.811 |
| 7 | Nicaragua | 0.810 |
| 8 | Nambia | 0.807 |
| 9 | Ireland | 0.804 |
| 10 | Germany | 0.801 |
Regional Results
- North America is the most advanced area with regard to closing the gender gap. The population-weighted average score for the region is 76.9%.
- Europe has the second highest level of gender parity, currently standing at 76.6% in the 2022 index.
- Latin America and the Caribbean rank third of all regions and have bridged 72.6% of the gender gap.
- In 2022, Central Asia reports the fourth-highest score out of the eight regions. The region’s overall progress in closing the gender gap remains unchanged from the last edition at 69.1%.
- East Asia and the Pacific rank fifth and have closed 69% of the gender gap in 2022.
- Sub-Saharan Africa has the 6th highest regional score and has bridged 68.7% of its gender gap.
- The Middle East and North Africa rank 7th with an average population-weighted score of 63.4%.
- Among all the eight regions covered in the report, South Asia ranks the lowest, with only 62.3 of the gender gap closed in 2022.