Bangladesh still most gender-equal country in South Asia despite slipping two places

Bangladesh is the only South Asian country in the top 100 of the Global Gender Gap Index, which benchmarks countries according to how close they are to reaching gender equality.

The country has closed 72.6 percent of its overall gender gap and ranked 50th among 153 countries. 

Bangladesh has improved its score slightly by 0.4 percentage points but has slipped two notches down, said the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its Global Gender Gap Report published on Monday. 

The WEF does the index rating based on economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

For the fifth time in a row, Bangladesh stays ahead of its South Asian neighbours.

Bangladesh, however, performed much worse, ranking 141th with a score of 0.438, in the economic participation and opportunity sub-index.
 
The country's ranking in educational attainment – which measures literacy rate, enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education – is 120th with a score of 0.951. 

Bangladesh is the top performer in the enrolment of primary and secondary education. 

But the country's performance is poor in health and survival sub-index, placed at 119th.

In the political empowerment sub-index, Bangladesh stands 7th with a score of 0.545.

Bangladesh is the only country in the world having most years with a female head of state in the past 50 years, exceeding the number of years with a male head of state, says the report.

But there are only 8 percent women in the cabinet and 20 percent in the parliament, the report points out.

Only one in 10 leadership roles is occupied by a woman (139th), and the estimated average annual income of women is 40 percent of that of men, says the report.

In the economic sphere, as of 2018, 38 percent of adult women were part of the labour force, up from 34 percent in 2017, compared with 84 percent of men, says the report.

South Asia comparison

Bangladesh's South Asian neighbours on the index are Nepal on 101th position and Sri Lanka on 102th both with 0.680 points, India on 112th with 0.668 points while Pakistan was at the bottom (151th) scoring 0.564 point, ahead of only war-torn Yemen and Iraq.

The Maldives ranked 123rd with a score of 0.646 and Bhutan stood 131th with a score of 0.564.

Iceland was the frontrunner in being closest to achieving gender equality, having closed 88 percent of its gender gap, followed by Norway 84.2 percent, Finland 83.2 percent and Sweden 82 percent.

"Without the equal inclusion of half of the world's talent, we will not be able to deliver on the promise of the fourth industrial revolution for all of society, grow our economies for greater shared prosperity or achieve the UN sustainable development goals," said Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF. 

"At the present rate of change, it will take nearly a century to achieve parity, a timeline we simply cannot accept in today's globalised world, especially among younger generations who hold increasingly progressive views of gender equality."

Of the 149 countries and economies covered both this year and last year, 101 have improved their score and 48 have seen their performance unchanged or reduced, says the report.

The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.