India slips 28 spots in WEF’s global gender gap report

India is now ranked 140 among 156 countries which has fallen 28 places in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, and is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, trailing behind neighbours Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

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South Asia incidentally is one of the worst performing regions, followed only by the Middle East and northern Africa.

Many countries have fared worse in this year’s rankings compared to last year’s, on account of economic performance.

On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.

The gender gap in political empowerment remains the largest: women represent only 26.1 per cent of some 35,500 parliament seats and just 22.6 per cent of over 3,400 ministers worldwide, according to the report.

In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of state, as of January 15, 2021.