New Delhi – In the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, India has slipped to the 131st position out of 146 countries, marking a drop of two places from its previous year’s rank. The report, which assesses gender parity across areas such as economic participation, education, health, and political empowerment, highlights India’s ongoing struggle to close the gender gap.
With a parity score of just 64.1%, India remains one of the lowest-ranked countries in South Asia. Despite progress in some sectors, the overall score indicates significant disparities, particularly in economic and political representation. The findings underscore the urgent need for targeted policies and sustained efforts to improve gender equality in the country.
India’s Performance on Gender Parity Shows Mixed Progress
India ranked 129 last year.
The Global Gender Gap Index measures gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The Indian economy’s overall performance improved in absolute terms by 0.3 points.
“One of the dimensions where India increases parity is in Economic Participation and Opportunity, where its score improves by .9 percentage points to 40.7 per cent. While most indicator values remain the same, parity in estimated earned income rises from 28.6 per cent to 29.9 per cent, positively impacting the subindex score,” the report said.
Progress in Education and Health, But Challenges Remain
Scores in labour force participation rate remained the same as last year India’s highest achieved to date.
In educational attainment, the report said, India scored 97.1 per cent, reflecting positive shifts in female shares for literacy and tertiary education enrolment, which result in positive score improvements for the subindex as a whole.
“India also records higher parity in health and survival, driven by improved scores in sex ratio at birth and in healthy life expectancy,” it said.
However, similar to other countries, parity in healthy life expectancy is obtained despite an overall reduction in the life expectancy of men and women, the report said.
“Where India records a slight drop in parity since the last edition is in Political Empowerment. Female representation in Parliament falls from 14.7 per cent to 13.8 per cent in 2025, lowering the indicator score for the second year in a row below 2023 levels,” it said.
