Indian women continue to earn Rs 40 for every Rs 100 earned by men, according to a recent global report highlighting a crucial gender pay gap existing in the country. Gendered income disparity has been a global concern across nations where time and again economic groups shed light on the pay gap between the earnings of men and women. The World Economic Forum recently released its Global Gender Gap index data that showed India has slipped two points and now ranks at 129 out of the 146 nations on the list. The report shows that economic gender parity across the globe has shown little improvement over the years wherein across all 146 countries in the index this year, the Global Gender Gap stands at 68.5 per cent.
Gender Pay Gap In India
The report highlights that for every man who earns Rs 100, women in India continue to earn only Rs 40. The country’s economic parity stands at 39.8 per cent which means that women in India on average earn Rs 39.8 for every Rs 100 that is earned by men.
India closed 64 per cent of its gender gap in 2024, the WEF report shows. Though the report states the country’s economic parity score is progressing, India still needs to grow by 6.2 per cent score to return to its 2012 level of 46 per cent.
Other countries in the South Asian region like Bangladesh reported the lowest level of economic gender parity at 31.1 per cent. Pakistan also showed a weak performance at 36 per cent.
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Bangladesh ranked above India in the rankings on gender economic parity.
The Global Outlook
Distressed Sudan stands at the lowest rank as it replaces Afghanistan which was not covered in this year’s data. Other countries like Malawi, Myanmar, and Russia also didn’t find any mention in the report.
Lowest performance:
Apart from Bangladesh and Pakistan in the SA region, globally Sudan was among the economies that showed the lowest levels of economic gender parity at 33.7 per cent; Iran (34.3 per cent), and Morocco (40.6 per cent).
“The economy of these countries (collectively) registered less than 30 per cent gender parity in estimated earned income,” the WEF report stated. Bridging the gap in economic participation and opportunity between men and women is the second biggest hurdle in dealing with the global gender gap, the WEF report notes.
Highest Rankings:
Iceland, once again emerged as the only economy to have closed its gender gap by more than 90 per cent – at 93.5 per cent. This is the 15th time it has been ranked as number 1 and is the only economy to have made recognisable progress going from 78 per cent to 93.5 per cent since 2006.
Finland ranked second at 87.5 per cent, closely followed by Liberia at 87.4 per cent and Norway at 87.5 per cent. Other nations among the top five include Botswana 85.4 per cent, and Sweden in fifth position with 81.6 per cent of the gap closed.
