Why is India in the bottom 20 when it comes to gender gap?

India Today

16 hours ago

India has once again slipped in the global race for gender equality. In the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum, India ranks 131st out of 148 countries, a fall from last year's 129th spot. The drop comes despite a marginal improvement in India's overall gender parity score, a clear signal that other countries are moving much faster.advertisementWhat's more worrying is that even within South Asia, India trails behind its neighbours: Bangladesh (rank 24), Bhutan (rank 119), Nepal (rank 125), and Sri Lanka (rank 130). With 64.4 per cent of its gender gap closed, India falls below the global average of 68.8 per cent and the South Asia regional average of 64.6 per cent.
First introduced in 2006, the WEF gender gap index tracks gender gaps across four dimensions: economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. India's performance is mixed, with education and health improving but political and economic indicators dragging down the score.The 2025 index shows that no economy has yet achieved full gender parity. Iceland, with a score of 92.6 per cent, has held the top position for 16 consecutive years now, and remains the only economy to have closed more than 90 per cent of its gender gap since 2022.Education gains, economic stagnationadvertisementThere's been real progress in education. India has achieved 97.1 parity in educational attainment and ranks 110th in that category. Girls are going to school and enrolling in colleges at nearly the same rate as boys. In fact, women now make up a majority of graduates in several urban universities. Despite that, the achievement does not translate into jobs or promotions. The boardrooms remain out of reach. Health outcomes have slightly improved, with a better sex ratio at birth and increased life expectancy for women. However, India still ranks low at 143rd on this subindex.Despite being the world's fastest-growing major economy, India remains one of the worst performers globally on gender parity in economic participation and opportunity, ranking 144th, ahead of a handful of crisis-ridden nations like Sudan, Pakistan, etc.McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2025 report found that only one in three hires at the junior level in Indian companies was a woman. As they moved up the ladder, the number of women dropped sharply. The report noted that just 18.2 per cent of board positions in corporate India were held by women.There's a growing gap between what women are qualified to do and what they're allowed to do. The WEF report backs this up. India's score on economic participation improved slightly, from 39.8 per cent in 2024 to 40.7 per cent in 2025, thanks to a rise in women's estimated earned income. But even now, Indian women earn about one-third less than men for the same work. And female workforce participation remains dismally low.Fewer women in poweradvertisementEven more worrying is the drop in political representation score, and it is the only subindex to do so this year. The number of women in Parliament fell from 14.7 to 13.8 per cent, and the share of women ministers dropped to 5.6 per cent, down from 6.5 per cent last year. These numbers take India further from its 30 per cent peak in 2019. In short, fewer women are in power today than a year ago.- Ends