India’s Gender Inequality Pulling Her Down

Forget the BRIC report, India being the next ‘ global giant’ and all that. Women’s empowerment in India is still right at the bottom, gives the World Economic Forum report. When it comes to the fairer sex’s participation in the economic agenda, India lies among the bottom 10.

The World Economic Forum’s most recent Gender Gap Index report was released over the weekend. According to figures, India has been placed at the 114th position after taking into account economic, political, and educational and health parities. This is among a total of 128 countries.

In terms of “economic participation and opportunity”, India has fared worse than last year — at 122nd position, slipping into the bottom 10 list.

In overall rankings, the country has gone down from its 98th rank in 2006 when the index included a total of 115 countries.

This year Sweden has crowned the Gender Gap Index, with a gender equality of 81.5 per cent, followed by Norway, Finland, Iceland and New Zealand.

The countries ranked below India include Bahrain, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Iran, Oman, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Benin, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Pakistan, Chad and Yemen (with the lowest gender equality of 45.1 per cent).

According to the report, India has an overall 59.4 per cent gender equality, while for economic participation and opportunity it stands at 39.8 per cent.

One consoling point. India has fared much better in terms of political empowerment -ranking 21st. The country has 106 women in Parliament, 118 in ministerial positions.