Global Gender Gap Report 2021: Key Points and India’s Performance

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The World Economic Forum has recently released the Global Gender Gap Report 2021. In this article, we will discuss all the major points of Global Gender Gap Report 2021. We will also look at India’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 in detail. To know all the important facts of this report, read the article attentively till the end. 

Global Gender Gap Report- Introduction

The Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality. The report aims to serve “as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics”. It examines the drivers of gender gaps and outlines the policies and practices needed for a gender-inclusive recovery. Through this report, the stakeholders within each country are able to set priorities relevant in each specific economic, political and cultural context. The Index benchmarks the evolution of gender-based gaps among four key dimensions i.e.

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity,
2. Educational Attainment
3. Health and Survival 
4. Political Empowerment

Highlights of Global Gender Gap Report 2021

Recently, the World Economic Forum has released the Global Gender Gap Report 2021. This year, the Global Gender Gap Index benchmarked 156 countries. The key points of this report are:

• According to the report, the average distance completed to gender parity is at 68%, a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
• The largest gender disparity is in political empowerment. Women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 parliament seats and just 22.6% of over 3,400 ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of state, as of 15th January, 2021.
• The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. The countries with the largest gender gaps in economic participation include Iran, India, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
• Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already at parity.
• Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world for the 12th time. The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.
• South Asia is one of the worst performing regions, followed only by the Middle East and northern Africa.

(Source: WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021)

India’s Ranking in the Global Gender Gap Report 2021

India has fallen 28 places in the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 and is now ranked 140 among 156 countries. In 2020, India had ranked 112th among 153 countries. It is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, trailing behind its neighbour- Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

• Economic Participation: The report highlights that the economic participation gender gap actually widened in India by 3% this year. The estimated earned income of women in India is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator.

• Political Empowerment: India has declined on the political empowerment index by 13.5 percentage points. It saw a decline in the number of women ministers, from 23.1% in 2019 to 9.1% in 2021.
• Education Attainment: In the index of education attainment, India has been ranked at 114.
• Health and Survival index: On this India has fared the worst, ranking at 155. The report points to a skewed sex ratio as a major factor for the worst performance of India in the Health and Survival index.

Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Gender Gaps

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised new barriers to building inclusive and prosperous economies and societies. This pandemic has amplified pre-existing gender gaps between men and women. The report mentions that another generation of women will have to wait for gender equality as 36 more years are added to the time left to close the gender gap. Some of the major impacts of Covid-19 highlighted by the report: 

• During the crisis, 5% of all employed women lost their jobs as compared with 3.9% of employed men.
• The report shows that women experience a bigger gender gap in potential-based job transitions in fields where they are currently under-represented. For example, Cloud Computing, Engineering and Data & AI.
• There was an increase of stress, anxiety around job insecurity and difficulty in maintaining work-life balance among women with children.
• The growing “double shift”, and other labour market dynamics such as occupational segregation, the pandemic is likely to have a scarring effect on future economic opportunities for women.

Know about World Economic Forum (WEF)

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. It engages political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. 

So this was all about the Global Gender Gap Report 2021. In this article, we have covered all the major highlights of the report. We hope you have gained some wonderful insights after reading this article. For more such informative articles, stay tuned!

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