India ranks #114? When will we wake up?

The importance of Gender Equality is being realized everywhere around the world and various studies have proved that it is vital for a society’s economic and social growth. To compare the data, the World Economic Forum has been publishing the Global Gender Gap Report since 2006.

According to the report, it “assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities, by providing a comprehensible framework for assessing and comparing global gender gaps and by revealing those countries that are role models in dividing these resources equitably between women and men, the Report serves as a catalyst for greater awareness as well as greater exchange between policymakers.”

The Global Gender Gap Report 2014, that was released today, has studied 142 nations around the world. The countries that ranked one, two and three were Iceland, Finland and Norway respectively, followed by Sweden and Denmark.

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India’s overall rank this year has been 114. In 2013, India ranked 101 amongst 136 countries. This year, Marie Claire released the list of 10 worst places for women to live in, India was one of them. Last year’s report also saw India being the second last in the Health and Survival sub-list. However, the country faired extremely well in the political Empowerment category at by ranking ninth on the list.

Since the first report that was released in 2006, there has been a 7.2% improvement in India’s overall ranking. The report states: “India is below average on three subindexes: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment and Health and Survival. In fact, it is the second-lowest performing country on Health and Survival, just ahead of Armenia.”

The report also said, “On the other hand, India is among the top twenty best-performing countries on the Political Empowerment subindex. India is part of the twenty worst-performing countries on the Labour force participation, Estimated earned income, Literacy rate and Sex ratio at birth indicators...  India has one of the lowest percentages of firms with female participation in ownership.”