India has ranked 127 out of 146 countries in terms of gender parity according to the World Economic Forum's annual Gender Gap Report, 2023. In 2022, The World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index. India has improved by 1.4 percentage points and eight positions since the last edition, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 parity level, the report stated. The country has attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education, it said.
India has closed 64.3 per cent of the overall gender gap, the report said. However, it underlined that India has reached only 36.7 per cent parity on economic participation and opportunity. The index ranked India's neighbours Pakistan at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103. Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world for the 14th consecutive year and the only one to have closed more than 90 per cent of its gender gap, according to the report.
In India, while there has been an uptick in parity in wages and income, the share of women in senior positions and technical roles has dropped slightly since the last edition, the report pointed out. On political empowerment, India has registered 25.3 per cent parity, with women representing 15.1 per cent of parliamentarians -- the highest for the country since the inaugural report in 2006. For India, the 1.9 percentage point improvement in the sex ratio at birth has driven up parity after more than a decade of slow progress, the report said.