Global Gender Gap report 2024

Iceland – with 93.5 per cent gender gap closed – ranks at the first position among all the countries. It has been leading the index for a decade and a half.

The other nine countries with the highest rates of gender parity in 2024 are: Finland (87.5 per cent), Norway (87.5 per cent), New Zealand (83.5 per cent), Sweden (81.6 per cent), Nicaragua (81.1 per cent), Germany (81 per cent), Namibia (80.5 per cent), Ireland (80.2 per cent), and Spain (79.7 per cent).

India ranks 129th in the Index, with a score of 64.1 per cent. In the 2023 report, it ranked 127th with a score of 64.3 per cent. This decline is attributed to fall in the ‘Educational Attainment’ and ‘Political Empowerment’ categories.

Under different categories, India’s secures the 112th rank in ‘Educational Attainment’ with 96.4 per cent, 65th place in ‘Political Empowerment’ with 25.1 per cent and 142nd in ‘Health and Survival’ with 95.1 per cent.

Out of the 146 countries studied, India had the fourth lowest score worldwide for ‘Economic Parity’ and is ranked in 142nd place. Areas for improvement in this regard include estimated income for women in India, women holding legislative roles, number of women in the labour force, and number of female professional and technical workers.

In terms of region, Europe closed the highest amount of their gender parity gap with 75 per cent of the gap closed. The region is followed by Northern America (74.8 per cent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (74.2 per cent).

With 63.7 per cent of the gap closed, Southern Asia has improved by 3.9 percentage points since 2006. Bangladesh is the regional leader with 68.9 per cent score, followed by Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Pakistan.

The report states that climate crises could push 158 million women and girls into poverty in the next 25 years. Proximity to armed conflict, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the growing cost of debt are other challenges for gender parity.

The report concludes that gender parity progress in recent years has been limited by “consecutive shocks” made worse by failures in social safety nets. Economic and technological progress also exacerbates existing inequality.

Focus and Factoids by Anandita Abraham. 

PARI Library's health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.