WEF report points to the great gender divide

That women in India lag behind men in terms of economic equality is hardly a surprise. But the extent of this divide is surprising enough. A...

That women in India lag behind men in terms of economic equality is hardly a surprise. But the extent of this divide is surprising enough. A study by the World Economic Forum — the organisation’s first such attempt to quantify the gender gap — ranked India 53 in a survey of 58 countries.

Women in Egypt were the furthest behind but the survey also found no country that has closed the ‘‘gender gap’’ entirely.

Called Women’s Empowerment: Measuring the Global Gender Gap, the report is based on five criteria — economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment and health and well-being.

India, ranked 57 on the educational front, could find a silver lining only by scoring high for political empowerment of women. A development, the report notes, ‘‘that may be taken as a good omen for the future’’.

As expected, the Scandinavian countries took the top five honours. Sweden had the smallest difference between the sexes, followed by Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland. Sweden offers the most government-provided childcare and almost half the seats in the country’s Parliament are occupied by women.

The populous nations appear to have finished last — India, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt are all in the bottom ten.

China, which has almost made a habit out of finishing first in the region, took the lead in Asia ranking 33, leaving Japan behind at 38. Though China scored high on economic participation — it can thank its labour policies for that — it performed badly on the education and political empowerment index.

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The survey covered all 30 industrialised countries in the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and 28 others from the ‘‘emerging market’’ world. Jordan and Egypt were the only two Arab world countries included in this report that reserved its severest criticism for the world’s biggest economy. The US came 17th in the equality table, ranking poorly on ‘‘the specific dimensions of economic opportunity and health and well-being, compromised by meagre maternity leave, the lack of maternity leave benefits and limited government-provided childcare’’.

The low rank of 46 for economic opportunity in the US reaffirms the belief that the glass ceiling is an unseen reality in a nation that prides itself on being the land of freedom.

Some myths were shattered, too. Switzerland, at 34, emerged an unlikely laggard. It is one of the few developed nations where female enrolment rates for education are lower than those of males. It also provides ‘‘among the lowest number of weeks of maternity leave’’. Of the seven predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, Bangladesh (39) and Malaysia (40) outperform Indonesia (46).