• World Economic Forum(WEF) recently released the Gender Gap Report- 2023.

MAJOR FINDINGS

• At the current rate of progress, it will take 131 years to reach full parity.
• Iceland with 91.2% takes the top spot along with Norway (87.9%) and Finland (86.3%)

It measures gender parity in 146 countries and across four areas: ·         economic participation and opportunity, ·         educational attainment, ·         health and survival and ·         political empowerment.

• Iceland is the only one to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.

• Overall, the Southern Asian region has achieved 63.4% gender parity, the second-lowest of the eight regions.
• As per the latest report, India has been ranked at 127 out of 146 countries in terms of gender equality.
• According to the report, India had attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education.
  • India had closed 64.3% of the overall gender gap.
• However, it underlined that India had reached only 36.7 % parity on economic participation and opportunity.
• On political empowerment, India has registered 3% parity, with women representing 15.1% of parliamentarians — the highest for the country since the inaugural report in 2006.
• The index ranked India’s neighbours Pakistan at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103.