NEW DELHI: India was ranked low at 135th place in terms of gender parity, despite an improvement of five places since last year on better performance in areas of economic participation and opportunity, as per the annual Gender Gap Report 2022 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) released Wednesday.
Only 11 countries were ranked below India on the index of 146 nations, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Iran and Chad being the worst-five, the report released in Geneva said.
Iceland retained its place as the world's most gender-equal country. It was followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden.
Warning that the cost of living crisis is expected to hit women hardest globally with a widening gender gap in the labour force, it said it would take another 132 years - compared to 136 in 2021 - to close the gender gap.
The report added that Covid-19 has further set gender parity back by a generation, and a weak recovery was making it worse globally.
The WEF said though India’s gender gap score recorded its seventh-highest level in the last 16 years, it continues to rank among the worst performers on various parameters.
"With a female population of approximately 662 million, India's level of attainment weighs heavily on regional rankings," it said.
The report said that India recovered ground since 2021 and registered the most significant and positive change to its performance on economic participation and opportunity.
But, labour-force participation shrunk for both men and women since 2021, it added.
However, the good news was that the share of women legislators, senior officials and managers increased from 14.6 per cent to 17.6 per cent. The percentage of women as professional and technical workers grew from 29.2 per cent to 32.9 percent.
The gender parity score for estimated earned income improved; while values for both men and women diminished, they declined more for men.
ALSO READ | Unseen gender discrimination in a man’s world
India ranked the top globally in terms of gender parity for primary and tertiary education enrolment and eighth place for the position of head of state.
In the area of political empowerment, the sub-index where India ranks relatively higher at 48th place showed a declining score due to the diminishing share of years women have served as head of state for the past 50 years.
On the health and survival subindex, India ranked the lowest at 146th place and figured among the five countries with gender gaps larger than 5 per cent. The other four are Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and China, it said.
Within South Asia, India was ranked the sixth best overall after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan. Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan scored worse than India.
South Asia (62.3 per cent) has the largest gender gap of all regions, with low scores across all measured gender gaps and little progress made in most countries since 2021.
At its current pace, it will take 197 years to close the gender gap in the region. The economic gender gap has closed by 1.8 per cent with increases in the share of women in professional and technical roles in countries including Bangladesh and India, as well as Nepal.
The WEF said that of the 146 economies surveyed, just one in five had closed the gender gap by at least 1 percent in the past year.
"The cost of living crisis is impacting women disproportionately after the shock of labour market losses during the pandemic, and the continued inadequacy of care infrastructure," WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi said.
At the current rates of progress, it will take 155 years to close the political empowerment gender gap - 11 more than predicted in 2021 -and 151 years for the economic participation and opportunity gender gap, the report added.