The Global Gender Gap Report, 2018, ranks 149 countries on the progress they have made towards gender parity in four areas of development – economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The South Asia region ranks second lowest in the Global Gender Gap Index 2018. According to the report, ‘if the current rate continues, South Asia will take 70 years to close the gap’. India stagnates at 108th position in 2018, with a score of 0.665 as compared to 0.669 in 2017.
Though India is slightly ahead of the South Asian average of 34.2% in 2018, it has to close a gender gap of 33%, which is much higher than its three South Asian neighbours, including Bangladesh (in 48th position), Sri Lanka (in 100th position) and Nepal (in 105th position).
In the Global Gender Gap Index, India is in the lower rung of the ladder, due to its weak scores in two indices- economic participation and health, and survival.
On economic participation, India has fallen three notches down (142nd position) with a score of 0.385, much below the global average of 0.59. The report states that the global average on economic participation fared badly due to the poor score from the populous countries of India and Mexico.
The contextual data in the report reinstates that Indian women constitute only 28.7% in the labour force as compared to 81.7% of their male counterparts. About 49.3% of the young women and girls in the country are neither in education nor in employment. About 65.6% of per day, unpaid work is done by the women folk.
Though women enter the labour market, 70.3% of them are employed in the informal sector and work in the most unfavorable and unsafe environments. In the workplace, women encounter significant obstacles in pursuing managerial or senior official positions. The presence of women in management roles is another barrier to achieving economic gender parity. The report highlights that only 11.7% of women could break the glass ceiling and be in the senior leadership position of publically traded companies.
On the health and survival sub-index, Sri Lanka is the South Asian country which has achieved gender parity. India slipped down to the third-lowest (147th) position in the global list of countries. India was in the 141st position in 2017. The 2018 report indicates that the ‘country underscored the issue of missing women and the gaps in access to health care for women and girls’. In spite of the “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” campaign, it is starkly evident that the country has not made a dent in challenging the negative social norms underpinning the violence against women.
On educational attainment, India is at the 114th position and has succeeded in fully closing its tertiary education gender gap at 27% for the first time, and keeps primary (92.9%) and secondary (62.2%) education gaps closed for the third year running.
In terms of political empowerment, in the South Asia region, Bangladesh has reached a level of gender parity of more than 50%, while India has closed only nearly 40% of its gender gap. Only 11.8% of females are represented in the parliament, and 18.5% in the ministerial positions. Women are seen only as vote banks by political parties. The big political parties offered only 11-12% party tickets to women in the state elections. In spite of the promise made by the NDA government of 33% reservation for women in the Parliament in their 2015 election manifesto, the Women’s Reservation Bill is still pending in the Parliament.
The Global Gender Gap Report also focusses on Artificial Intelligence. The report states that ‘Artificial Intelligence is a prominent driver of change within transformations brought about by the fourth industrial revolution’. Though India has the second largest artificial intelligence (AI) workforce, it has one of the largest gender gaps with women constituting only 22% of the talent pool.
Reiterating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), India has to make adequate commitments to implementing its policies and legislation for achieving the goal of gender equality. Programme evaluations and corresponding tracking of allocations, and utilization of the resources should be through a transparent process. The thrust should be in creating an enabling environment for women and girls in all spheres of life – promoting positive gender norms for a transformative gender-equal society.