The Hindu Editorial Analysis- 2nd September, 2022 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Academia, Research and the Glass Ceiling in India  

Why in News?

Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022.

• India’s overall score has improved from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
  • In 2021, India was ranked 140 out of 156 countries.
• The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes.
  

What is the Global Gender Gap Index?

• About:
  • It benchmarks countries on their progress towards gender parity in four Key dimensions with Sub Metrices.
    (i) Economic Participation and Opportunity
    (ii) Educational Attainment
    (iii) Health and Survival
    (iv) Political Empowerment
• On each of the four sub-indices as well as on the overall index the GGG index provides scores between 0 and 1, where 1 shows full gender parity and 0 is complete imparity.
• It is the longest-standing index, which tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006.

What has India Fared on Four Key Dimensions?

• Political Empowerment (Percentage of Women in Parliament and in Ministerial Positions):
  • India ranks the highest (48th out of 146).
  • Notwithstanding its rank, its score is quite low at 0.267.
    (i) Some of the best ranking countries in this category score much better.
    (ii) For instance, Iceland is ranked 1 with a score of 0.874 and Bangladesh is ranked 9 with a score of 0.546.
• Economic Participation and Opportunity (Percentage of women in labour force, Wage Equality for similar work, Earned income):
  • India ranks a lowly 143 out of the 146 countries in contention even though its score has improved over 2021 from 0.326 to 0.350.
    (i) In 2021, India was pegged at 151 out of the 156 countries.
  • India’s score is much lower than the global average, and only Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are behind India on this metric.
• Educational Attainment (Literacy Rate and the Enrolment rates in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education):
  • India ranks 107th out of 146, and its score has marginally worsened since last year.
    (i) In 2021, India was ranked 114 out of 156.
• Health and Survival (Sex ratio at birth and Healthy Life Expectancy):
• India is ranked the last (146) among all the countries.
• Its score hasn’t changed from 2021 when it was ranked 155th out of 156 countries.

What are Global Findings?

• Ranking:
  • Iceland has retained its position as the world’s most gender-equal country, among 146 nations on the index.
  • Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden are the top five countries on the list respectively.
  • Afghanistan is the worst-performing country in the report.
• Scenario:
  • Overall GGG is closed by 68.1%. At the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity.
  • Although no country achieved full gender parity, the top 3 economies closed at least 80% of their gender gaps,
    (i) Iceland (90.8%)
    (ii) Finland (86%),
    (iii) Norway (84.5%)
  • South Asia will take the longest to reach gender parity, which is estimated to be likely in 197 years.
• Impact of Covid-19:
  • The progress toward gender parity has been halted and even reversed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Women have borne the brunt of the recession, widely dubbed the 'shecession', largely because they work in sectors that were most impacted, such as retail and hospitality.
  • The pandemic recession has hit women harder than the 2009 financial crisis impacted male workers.