WEF report says Pakistan second-worst country on Global Gender Gap Index
July 13, 2022
- Pakistan ranks second-worst country on global gender gap index.
- Pakistan has smallest share of senior managerial, and legislative roles.
- It ranks 143 on health and survival and 135 on educational attainment subindexes.
The Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has positioned Pakistan as the second-worst country, ranking the country 145 out of 146 states.
The top five worst countries are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Chad, while the top five countries with gender parity are Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden.
The report says that the global gender gap in 2022 was closed by 68.1%.
“At the current rate, it will take 132 years to reach full parity," the report said. "This represents a slight four-year improvement compared to the 2021 estimate (136 years to parity).”
The report also noted that considering the trends that led up to 2020, the gender gap could close within 100 years.
While Pakistan closed on 56.4%, the report said that the country had made "significant improvement" across three subindexes.
The highest positive variation was seen in economic participation and opportunity. Ranking 145 on economic participation and opportunity, in marked contrast, Pakistan ranked 95 on political participation.
It ranked 143 on health and survival and 135 on educational attainment subindexes.
“While wage equality carries the highest gender gap score among economic indicators, advances were also reported in estimated earned income, where women’s earnings increased 4% compared to 2021.”
“Gender parity scores for literacy, secondary and tertiary education enrolment all rose,” the report added.
It further mentioned that Pakistan had the smallest share of senior managerial and legislative roles.
Regionally, South Asia has one of the lowest gender parity scores, specifically for health and survival.
“In this subindex, only Sri Lanka has closed its gender gap, while Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India are among the worst-performing countries globally," the report mentioned.
