Daily Times

Pakistan has been ranked the second-worst country in terms of gender parity, placed 145 out of 146 states, in the latest Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.

In the ranking, Pakistan is just better than neighbouring Afghanistan, according to the report. Since 2006, the Global Gender Gap Index has measured the world’s progress towards gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.

At a global level, the report stated, only 68.1% of the gender gap has been closed, meaning it will take another 132 years to reach gender parity. “This is a slight improvement from last year, but three decades longer than the situation in 2020, before the impacts of Covid-19 on gender equality,” it added.

The report ranked 146 countries, of which the top five are Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden, while the five worst ones are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran and Chad.

The report noted that Pakistan, with 107 million women, has closed 56.4% of the gender gap that affects them. This is the highest overall level of parity Pakistan has posted since the report launched, it added.

According to the WEF, Pakistan registered significant improvement across three subindexes, with the highest positive variation on Economic Participation and Opportunity. “While wage equality carries the highest gender gap score among economic indicators (0.620), advances were also reported in estimated earned income, where women’s earnings increased 4% compared to 2021.,” it said.

However, it is worth noting that women’s labour-force participation declined by 1.9 percentage points in 2022, while both shares of men and women workers in senior and professional categories saw a downturn.

On Educational Attainment, the report said, gender parity scores for literacy, secondary and tertiary education enrolment all rose. However, the shares of male and female students in secondary and tertiary education both increased from 2021, while a drop in parity in literacy correlates to a reduction in the population of men that are literate

According to the report, Pakistan was also ranked second-worst in South Asia as well with only Afghanistan below it on the list.

“South Asia has the widest gender gap on Economic Participation and Opportunity, having closed only 35.7% of this gender gap. While the sub-index score is an improvement of 1.8 percentage points from last year, there are considerable country divergences that anchor the result as the lowest among all regions,” it said.

According to the WEF, Afghanistan has only attained 17.6% parity on this sub-index, well below the highest score of Nepal, at 64.1%. Highly populated countries are for the most part driving variation within this sub-index.

“For example, increases in the share of women in professional and technical roles were most notable in Nepal, Bangladesh and India. On the other hand, the shares in Iran, Pakistan and Maldives regressed, with less impact on overall regional performance.”

The report stated that the estimated earned income only improved significantly in the Maldives, while labour-force participation has largely stalled across most countries, regressing significantly in Iran, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

Iceland has once again been named the most gender equal country, topping the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022. The Nordic country has closed more than 90% of its gender gap – and tops the ranking for the 12th year in a row, out of a total of 146 economies in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Index.

Iceland’s near neighbours Finland, Norway and Sweden dominate the top five, while only four countries in the top 10 are outside Europe: New Zealand (4th), Rwanda (6th), Nicaragua (7th) and Namibia (8th).

The top five are unchanged from last year, but Lithuania and Switzerland have dropped out of the top 10, with Nicaragua and Germany taking their places.