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Global Gender Gap Report 2022

  • 14 Jul 2022

The Global Gender Gap Report 2022 was recently released by the World Economic Forum.

It compares countries’ gender gaps across four dimensions:

  • Pillar 1 Economic Participation and Opportunity
  • Pillar 2 Educational Attainment
  • Pillar 3 Health and Survival
  • Pillar 4 Political Empowerment

Key Findings

Global Results and Time to Parity

  • In 2022, the global gender gap has been closed by 68.1%.
  • At the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity.
  • This represents a slight four-year improvement compared to the 2021 estimate (136 years to parity).
  • Across the 146 countries covered by the 2022 index, the Health and Survival gender gap has closed by 95.8%, Educational Attainment by 94.4%, Economic Participation and Opportunity by 60.3% and Political Empowerment by 22%.
  • Most Gender-Equal Country: Iceland has retained its position as the world’s most gender-equal country, among 146 nations on the index. Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden are followed by Iceland in the top five countries on the list respectively.
  • Worst-Performing Country: Afghanistan is the worst-performing country in the report (146th).

At current pace, when are regions likely to close the gap?

Time–Frame for Closing the Gender Gap over Four Pillars

Based on the evolution of the global average scores for each sub-index over the past 16 editions for the constant sample of 102 countries, at the current rates of progress, it will take

  • 155 years to close the Political Empowerment gender gap
  • 151 years for the Economic Participation and Opportunity gender gap,
  • 22 years for the Educational Attainment gender gap.
  • The time to close the Health and Survival gender gap remains undefined as its progress to parity has stalled.

India-specific Findings

  • India has been ranked 135 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report 2022.
  • The country has scored 0.629, on a scale of 0 to 1, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
  • India registers the most significant and positive change to its performance on Economic Participation and Opportunity.
  • However, the country has the lowest ranking on the Health and Survival sub-index and has registered a declining score in Political Empowerment.

India’s Performance on Four Pillars

India’s Ranking with Neighbours

  • India also ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126).
  • Only Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) perform worse than India in South Asia.