Bangladesh leading in South Asia in gender parity: WEF report
Bangladesh has ranked number one among South Asian countries in terms of gender parity, according to the latest Global Gender Gap Report 2023 by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
With a score of 72.2%, Bangladesh ranked 59th globally, indicating significant progress in achieving gender parity. Women across the country this year experienced a rise in overall gender parity, as reflected in a higher score and index ranking compared to 2022.
Bangladesh ranked 71st globally in 2022 with a gender parity score of 71.4%.
The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The level of progress toward gender parity (the parity score) for each indicator is calculated as the ratio of the value of each indicator for women to the value for men. A parity score of 1 indicates full parity.
In South Asia, Bangladesh continues to top the chart, followed by Bhutan (68.2%), Sri Lanka (66.3%), Nepal (65.9%), Maldives (64.9%), India (64.3%), Pakistan (57.5%), and Afghanistan (40.5%).
Bangladesh has made notable progress in the field of political empowerment, placing seventh worldwide and achieving a gender parity rate of 55.2%. The country has had a woman as head of state for 29.3 years out of the last 50 years, the longest duration in the world.
However, the report shows the shares of women in ministerial (10%) and parliamentary positions (20.9%) in Bangladesh are relatively low.
In terms of health and survival, Bangladesh achieved a parity rate of 96.2% due to higher parity in sex ratios at birth. In terms of healthy life expectancy, however, gender parity has been dropping as men's life expectancy has been increasing faster than that of women since the 2020 edition.
Bangladesh demonstrated a higher parity in education as well, with a gender parity rate of 93.6%.
The report says both women and men's literacy rates and enrolment in secondary and tertiary education have been increasing steadily over the last decade.
"While there is now full parity in enrolment in secondary education, for literacy rate and enrolment in tertiary education, there remains a persistent gap," the report states.
Bangladesh's performance in terms of economic participation and opportunity remained one of the lowest globally. According to the latest report, Bangladesh ranked 139 globally, with a parity rate of only 43.8%.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2023 also highlighted the gender parity status of South Asia as a region. With a parity rate of 63.4%, South Asia stands at 7th out of 8 regions. The score has risen by 1.1 percentage points since the last edition on the basis of the constant sample of countries covered since 2006, which can be partially attributed to the rise in scores of populous countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
According to the report, it will take 149 years to achieve full parity in this region at the current rate of progress.
Meanwhile, India has scored a parity rate of 64.3%, ranking 127th on the global index. Although the country has improved by 1.4 percentage points and eight positions since the last edition, it lags far behind, compared to Bangladesh, in achieving gender parity in terms of economic participation and opportunity (36.7%) and political empowerment (25.3%).