A short note on WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021

The Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index is designed to measure gender equality. The Gender Gap Index ranks countries on four key areas - health, education, economy and politics. The method uses hard data available for 13 out of 14 variables from international organizations. (covering almost 95% of world’s population)

When the first report was published in 2006, India started at 98 out of 115 when the gender gap closed at 60.1%. In 2020, India was at 112 out of 153 (66.8%) but in 2021 it slipped 28 spots to 140 out of 156 (62.5%). 

India’s Gender Gap Score has declined on all key areas. 

• Economic Participation & Opportunity: from 35.4% (Rank-149 in 2020) to 32.6% (Rank- 151 in 2021)
• Education Attainment: from 96.2% (Rank-112) to 96.2%(Rank 114)
• Health & Survival: from 94.4% (Rank-150) to 93.7% (Rank-155)
• Political Empowerment: from 41.1% (Rank-18) to 27.6% (Rank-51)

Among India’s neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65 (71.9%), Nepal 106 (68.3%), Sri Lanka 116 (67.0%), Bhutan 130 (63.9%), Pakistan 153 (55.6%), and Afghanistan 156 (44.4%). Note that Afghanistan is an exception given the history of the Taliban.

For top 10 countries in the list, Iceland gender gap closed to date stands at 89.2% followed by Finland (86.1%), Norway (84.9%), New Zealand (84.0%), Sweden (82.3%), Namibia (80.9%), Rwanda (80.9%) Lithuania (80.4%), Ireland (80.0%) and Switzerland (79.8%). Note that there are 2 African countries (Namibia, Rwanda) ranked in Top-10.

As per 2021, the gender gap at global level stands at 67.7% compared to 68.6% in 2020.

Okay but what does it really mean? 

Well it means at global level, it will take almost 135.6 years to close the gender gap. Last year before the pandemic hit, WEF estimated that it would take 99.5 years to close the gender gap. Now it is gone up almost a generation.

As of 2021, it will take 145.5 years to close the gender gap in Economic Participation & Opportunity, and 267.6 years to close the gender gap in Political Empowerment. On the positive side, the gender gap in Health and Survival is close to zero and it will take roughly 14.2 years to close the gender gap in Education Attainment.

Now coming to India. As per the report, with the ongoing rate of improvement, India will take another 265 years to close the gender gap. WOW!!! It is almost twice compared to that of the world.

However there is hope. India is going through massive unprecedented transformation in the education sector. As education lays the foundation for the development of a country, the change in education scenario will bridge the gap in economic participation and opportunity along with political participation at a much faster rate. Therefore I believe, there is a strong probability that the gap across key areas will close down much sooner than predicted.

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