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Take a look at the essential concepts, terms, quotes, or phenomena every day and brush up your knowledge. Here’s your knowledge nugget for today.
(Relevance: In 2017, a Prelims question was asked about the Global Gender Gap Index. Indices are important for assessing the development of countries across various parameters. These indices provide insights into the progress made by the world in creating a gender-equitable society. These stats also provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic and help in value addition for Mains answers. )
Gender equality, gender equity, and social empowerment are the buzzwords that often come up when we talk about women’s empowerment. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8 every year, we look at global indices to see how far-fetched these goals are. As we move to attain Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG-5) by 2030— gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls — the performance of countries across these indices is important to assess.
1. Global Gender Gap Index: The Global Gender Gap Index is released annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. The index lies between 0 and 1, with 1 denoting complete parity.
→ Iceland (93.5%) is again ranked 1st and has been leading the index for a decade and a half. Finland is ranked second and Norway is ranked third.
→ India ranks 129 out of the 146 countries. This puts India at the 18th position from the bottom. In 2023, India stood at 127 rank out of the 146 countries.
2. Gender Inequality Index (GII): GII is published by UNDP in their Human Development Report. It measures gender inequalities in three key dimensions — reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market. The score ranges from 0, where women and men fare equally, to 1, where one gender fares as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions.
→ India has a GII value of 0.403, ranking it 102 out of 172 countries in 2023. India has been ranked at 108 out of 193 countries with a score of 0.437 in GII, 2022. Its rank was 122 out of 191 countries with a score of 0.490 in the GII-2021.
→ The country’s GII value of 0.437 is better than the global average of 0.462 and the South Asian average of 0.478.
3. Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI): GSNI is published by UNDP with a focus on understanding the role of social beliefs in obstructing gender equality along four dimensions: political, educational, economic, and physical integrity. It reflects Overall, the GSNI reflects the biases from social norms in these dimensions as well as how are they evolving.
→ “The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women. Nearly half the world’s people believe that men make better political leaders than women do, and two of five people believe that men make better business executives than women do” highlighted the index.
→ The percentage of people with bias in India is 99.22 percent. These biased gender social norms not only limit freedoms and choices for women but also deprive societies from the benefits of women’s leadership.
4. Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI): It is a composite index developed by UNDP and UN Women to measure the level of women’s empowerment across five dimensions: health, education, inclusion, decision-making, and violence against women. A value close to 1 indicates higher empowerment across the five dimensions, and a value close to 0 indicates lower empowerment. India’s score is 0.52.
5. Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI): It is a composite scheme developed by UNDP and UN Women to assess the status of women’s achievements relative to men’s in four dimensions of human development: life and good health;
education, skill-building and knowledge; labour and financial inclusion; and participation in decisionmaking.
→ According to the report, a GGPI value below 1 means that, on average, women perform worse than men across the four dimensions, and a value above 1 indicates that women perform better than men. India has got a score of 0.560 indicating that lots of work needs to be completed to achieve gender equality.
| NITI Aayog SDG Index |
| The Index for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) evaluates progress of states and Union Territories (UTs) on various parameters including health, education, gender, economic growth, institutions, climate change, and environment. The SDG India Index scores range between 0–100, higher the score of a State/UT, the greater the distance to target achieved. Overall, the score of India improved significantly from 36 in 2018 to 49 in 2023-24. |
BEYOND THE NUGGET: Gender Budget Statement
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2025 said that ‘nari’ (women) were one of four focus groups for the government. Since the Financial Year (FY) 2005-06, the Government of India (GoI) has been releasing the Gender Budget Statement (GBS) along with the Union Budget.
The GBS includes schemes across Union ministries and departments with full or part allocations for women and girls. It is important to note that the GBS is not a separate budget for women, but a reporting or accounting exercise for existing schemes.
The GBS reports a total allocation of Rs 4.49 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, a welcome 37% increase from FY 2024-25. While trends in GBS allocations and expenditures show variations, there has been an overall absolute increase in prioritisation for women and girls over the years.
Post Read Question
Which of the following gives ‘Global Gender Gap Index’ ranking to the countries of the world? (2017)
(a) World Economic Forum
(c) UN Women
(d) World Health Organization
| Answer Key |
| (a) |
(Source: What the Union Budget does — and doesn’t do — for women, UNEP, WEF, UN)
UPSC Special Articles on International Women’s Day
Gender Mainstreaming | A legacy of learning
Gender Mainstreaming | How Manju Devi in Panchayat reflects a widespread reality in India
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