Gender parity is still 99.5 years away: WEF report
According to the World Economic Forum, political gender parity will take 95 years and the economic gap will take 257 years to close.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 global gender parity is still 99.5 years away. The gap has narrowed from 106 years as estimated in last year’s report. The improvement is largely attributed to increase in participation of women in politics.
However, the political gap will take 95 years to close, which is an improvement compared to 107 years last year. The economic gap, however has widened from 57.8 percent in 2018 to 58.1 percent now. According to the report, the current economic gap will require 257 years to close.
The study published on December 17, reports that globally only 55 percent of women are engaged in the labour market, less than men who make up 78 percent. In 72 countries women are restricted from opening bank accounts or availing credit, which impedes economic and entrepreneurial ventures.
Image source: World Economic Forum
The findings of the report suggest that educational and health and survival are much closer to parity with 96.1 percent and 95.7 percent respectively.
Iceland remains the most gender-equal country with Finland, Sweden and Nicaragua following behind. Spain, Ethiopia, Mexico and Georgia have made leaps of progress and improved their standing by at least 20 places, largely due to improvements in political empowerment.
Challenges and trends
Source: World Economic Forum
Even though gender gap has improved in the political sphere, it still requires most amount of improvement. Globally women hold only 25.2 percent of parliamentary lower house seats. The numbers slip further to 21.2 percent of women with ministerial positions.
The report suggests that several reasons like low levels of women in managerial and leadership roles, wage stagnation, fewer labour force participation and income reasons for high economic gender gap. Women are also highly represented in roles that are hit hardest by automation, like retail and white-collar clerical roles.
Secondly, women are often found in middle-low wage category jobs that have remained stagnant since the 2008 financial crisis. Third, the lack of care infrastructure and access to capital limits women’s participation in the workforce.
However, the report suggests that positive correlation can be observed between high political empowerment with high numbers of women in senior roles. This ‘role model effect’ says the report can contribute to shaping the labour market outcomes and economic gender parity.
The report suggests three key strategies to achieve economic parity: one, equipping women with disruptive technical skills, enhancing diverse and creating inclusive work cultures.
Where does India stand?
Source: World Economic Forum
According to the report, South Asia will take 71.5 years to close the gender gap. The region has closed two-thirds of its gender gap. Globally, India ranks 112 out of 153 countries in terms of overall gender gap. In the region, it ranks lower than Bangladesh(50th overall), Nepal (101st) and Sri Lanka(102nd).
The most stark finding is the health and survival rank. India globally stands among the lowest four, above Vietnam, Azerbaijan and China.
In the political paradigm, women remain underrepresented with 14.4 percent women in Parliament and 23 percent in the cabinet. In terms of leadership, Indian women account for only 14 percent of these roles. India ranks 117th in terms of wage equality. In the education dimension, things are better with women accounting for more primary and tertiary education enrollments. However, compared to 82 percent literacy among men, only two-thirds of women are literate.
(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)
