Bangladesh has ranked 47th in the Global Gender Gap report 2017, jumping 25 notches from its previous position and topping the list of South Asian countries.
Bangladesh scored 0.719 (with complete parity at 1) in the gender parity index and ranked the highest among the south Asian nations. The Maldives (0.669) came second in the region and ranked 106th while India (0.669) 108th, Sri Lanka (0.669) 109th, Nepal (0.664) 111th, Bhutan (0.638) 124th and Pakistan (0.546) 143rd.
According to the report, Bangladesh and the Maldives are the top-ranked countries in the region, having closed just under 72 per cent and 67 per cent of their overall gender gap respectively while the lowest-ranked countries are Bhutan and Pakistan, having closed just under 64 per cent and 55 per cent of their overall gender gap respectively.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) published the report on November 02. This year's edition of the report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity on a scale from 0 (imparity) to 1 (parity) across four thematic dimensions-Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment-and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups.
"Of the seven countries from the region included in the index this year, three countries have increased their overall score compared to last year while four have seen their scores decrease," the report said.
It said Bangladesh (47) further consolidates its position as the region's top performer and climbs several spots this year, recording progress across all dimensions of the Economic Opportunity and Participation sub-index.
Specifically, the country has improved gender parity for legislator, senior official and manager as well as professional and technical roles, in addition to estimated earned income and wage equality for similar work-despite a slight widening of its healthy life expectancy gender gap, it said.
The south Asia region, however, is the second-lowest scoring in the 2017 Global Gender Gap Index, performing better than the Middle East and North Africa and worse than Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. The average remaining gender gap in South Asia is 34 per cent.
Bangladesh's strongest category was political empowerment, where the country ranked 7th among 155 countries. It performed worst in economic participation and opportunity, in which it currently ranks 129th. It also performed badly in health and survival with 125th rank.
In her reaction, ActionAid Bangladesh country director Farah Kabir told the FE that the progress of Bangladesh is definitely a positive one. But the attainments in various indicators considered here are compared with South Asian countries which is not the actual scenario.
Still the services of women are unpaid and unrecognized, early marriage rate is still high here, violence against women is increasing, their movement is not secured, their decision-making rights is not yet welcome and lot more to do for their education and skills development, she said.
The Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time.
Last year the World Economic Forum estimated that if 2016 trends continued, the gender gap would disappear in 83 years. This year's report says closing the gender gap could take 100 years if current trends continued.
The Maldives (106) also records a narrowing of its gender gap, with progress evident, in particular, on estimated earned income and across the Political Empowerment sub-index. It has also fully closed its Educational Attainment gender gap for the first time since 2013. India (108) experiences a decline in its overall Global Gender Gap Index ranking, largely attributable to a widening of its gender gaps in Political Empowerment as well as in healthy life expectancy and basic literacy.
Only one country in the region, Maldives, has fully closed its Educational Attainment gender gap; and only one country, Sri Lanka, has fully closed its Health and Survival gender gap.
However, the region is also home to Nepal, one of the top five climbers over the past decade on the overall index and on the Educational Attainment sub-index. From a low base, South Asia has made the fastest progress on closing its gender gap of any world region.
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