By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Dec 20, 2019: It may take 71 years to bridge the gender gap in South Asia, says World Economic Forum (WEF).
The forum publishes the Global Gender Gap Index every year. The index for this year – the 14th edition — was published on December 18.
The South Asia region has closed two-thirds of its gender gap. The region is home to 860 million women, three-fourths of whom live in India. Among the eight regions of the world, South Asia’s gender gap is the second-largest after the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where only 61 percent of the gender gap has been closed.
Since 2006, South Asia has progressed the most, gaining six percentage points. If the rate of progress of the past 15 years was to continue, it will take 71 years to close the region’s gender gap.
Reflecting the magnitude of the challenge when it comes to gender parity, Bangladesh (overall score of 72.6 percent) is the only one of the seven South Asian countries studied to feature in the top 100 of the Global Gender Gap Index.
India ranks 112th (66.8 percent ) and Pakistan (56.4 percent) is antepenultimate, only ahead of Iraq and Yemen.
The performance of South Asia across the four main areas of the Global Gender Gap Index is one of stark contrasts. With a score of 38.7 percent on the Political Empowerment subindex, the region is on par with the leading region, Western Europe (40.9).
The score is four times better that of the MENA region (10.2), which otherwise has a very similar profile to South Asia in the other three subindexes.
The performance is also helped by the fact that Bangladesh (1st), India (4th), and Sri Lanka (9th) are among the 10 countries with the most years with a female head of state in the past 50 years.
Indeed, Bangladesh is the only country in the world where that number exceeds the number of years with a male head of state (25.6 compared with 24.4).
In terms of female representation in parliament and in cabinets, however, South Asia’s performance is largely in line with other emerging regions. For example, women represent 20 percent or less of the parliament in six of the seven countries studied, the only exception being Sri Lanka (33 percent, 34th).
In fact, South Asia is the only region that scores better on the Political and Empowerment subindex than on the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, where South
Asia has only bridged 37 percent of its gender gap.
The region ranks last in this dimension, notably standing 6 percent behind the MENA region and almost 40 points behind North America.
The situation has been deteriorating steadily, from a peak at 45 percent in 2012, and the gender gap is now significantly wider than in 2006.
South Asia has made significant strides in narrowing its educational gender gap. In 2006, the gap stood at almost 20 percent, the largest of all regions.
Since then, the gap has narrowed to 6 percent. Female attainment at all education levels is generally on par, or at times better than for men across the region—but absolute attainment levels for both sexes remain generally low.
The main issue is gender differences in literacy rate. In India, 66 percent of women are literate compared with 82 percent of men. Pakistan’s literacy rates are 46 percent and 71 percent respectively.
Among the four areas the index looks at, health and survival is where South Asia’s gender gap is the narrowest, with a score of 94.7 percent, even though the region has stagnated since 2006.
Women enjoy a longer healthy life expectancy than men do, except in Bhutan. The performance continues to be undermined by the abnormally low sex ratios at birth in India (91 girls for every 100 boys) and Pakistan (92 girls for every 100 boys).