India's gender gap refuses to narrow on global scale

New Delhi/Geneva: India holds the 131st position on the Global Gender Gap Index 2026, compiled by the World Economic Forum. Iceland, Finland, and Norway continue to lead the top three rankings. Only 14 countries fall below India's standing on the index, which includes 145 countries in total. Chad ranks at the bottom alongside Iran and Pakistan, with Iran and Pakistan joining Chad in the bottom three.

According to the WEF, nearly all economies monitored since 2006 have made progress towards gender parity, yet full parity remains an estimated 120 years away. Globally, 69.2% of the gender gap has been closed, up by 0.4 percentage points from the previous year. In India, the gender gap stands at 64.5%, below the global average. Although India's score has improved slightly over the past year, its global ranking remains unchanged at 131st.

Since 2006, India's gender parity has increased by 4.3 percentage points, mainly due to gains in educational attainment. In the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, India's parity score is 41.2%, up by 0.5% from the previous edition but 3.5 percentage points lower than its highest result in 2013. A notable advancement in professional and technical workers has doubled parity from 26.6% in 2006 to 49.9% in 2026. However, representation in legislative, senior official, and managerial roles remains low at 13.1%.

The labour-force participation parity has seen a minor improvement over the last two decades, standing at 44.1% in 2026. In the educational attainment subindex, India achieved a 96.6% parity score, although it declined by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year. Despite an upward trend since 2017, India's sex ratio at birth in 2026 remains nearly one percentage point lower than in 2006. Political Empowerment is India's highest-ranked subindex, with 24.5% of the gap closed and a global rank of 67th.