India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2021, falling behind five neighbours, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The dip was mainly due to the decline in the political empowerment subindex -- a significant decline in the number of women ministers from 23.1 per cent in 2019 to 9.1 per cent in 2021 -- and economic participation and opportunity subindex, albeit to a lesser extent.
India has closed 62.5 per cent of its gender gap till date, the report said. It had ranked 112th among 153 countries in the index last year.
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On the political empowerment subindex, the report also said the share of women in Parliament remained stagnant at 14.4 per cent and the share of the last 50 years in which a woman has been head of state is 15.5 years.
India’s gender gap on economic participation and opportunity dimension widened by 3 per cent this year, leading to a 32.6 per cent gap closed to date. Among the drivers of this decline are a decrease in women’s labour force participation rate, which fell from 24.8 per cent to 22.3 per cent, the report said.
When it comes to neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Sri Lanka 116, Maldives 128 and Bhutan 130, which were above India. Pakistan was ranked 153, while Afghanistan ranked last at 156.
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The report highlighted that only 29.2 per cent of technical roles are held by women in India, while it was 25.3 per cent in Pakistan and 19.3 per cent in Afghanistan. "The presence of women in senior roles is even more rare: women make up just 4.1 per cent in Afghanistan, 4.9 per cent in Pakistan, 10.7 per cent in Bangladesh and 14.6 per cent in India," it said.
In India, there are only 8.9 per cent of firms with female top managers. In the labour market in India, only 22.3 per cent of women participate in the labour market, translating to a gender gap of 72 per cent.
The disparity in income between men and women is also huge -- in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the income of an average woman is below 16 per cent of that of an average man, while in India it is 20.7 per cent. Only in Nepal and Bhutan is the gap lower than 50 per cent, as the income earned by a woman is 74 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively, of that of a man.
The income disparity between men and women goes further as women’s estimated earned income is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts India among the bottom 10 globally. India also ranks among the bottom five countries in health and survival subindex .
According to the report, China and India together account for about 90%-95% of the estimated 1.2-1.5 million missing female births annually worldwide due to gender-biased prenatal sex selective practices. Further, China, India and Pakistan register excess female mortality rates (below age 5) related to neglect and gender-biased postnatal sex selection practices.