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India retained its 131st rank on the Global Gender Gap Index 2026, released by the World Economic Forum.
Context
India's Position
- Rank: 131, unchanged from last year
- Progress toward gender parity: 64.5 per cent — below the global average
- India’s score improved slightly, but the ranking remained unchanged
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The Top Three
- Iceland
- Finland
- Norway
The Bottom Three
- Chad — the lowest-ranked country
- Iran and Pakistan complete the bottom three
Countries Ranked Below India
14 countries, including Papua New Guinea, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Mali, Algeria and Congo.
Important Facts for Examsmost asked
- Global Gender Gap Index — published by the World Economic Forum, first in 2006; headquartered at Cologny, Geneva
- India’s rank: 131; parity score 64.5 per cent
- Iceland has topped the index for over a decade
- The index measures parity across four sub-indices:
- Economic Participation and Opportunity
- Educational Attainment
- Health and Survival
- Political Empowerment
- India has historically scored well on Political Empowerment but poorly on Economic Participation and Health and Survival — particularly on sex ratio at birth
- The index measures gaps between women and men, not absolute levels — so a poor country with equal outcomes can rank above a rich one with unequal outcomes
- A score of 1 = full parity; 0 = complete imparity
- Other WEF publications: the Global Risks Report, Global Competitiveness Report, Travel and Tourism Development Index, and the Future of Jobs Report
- Related Indian data: female labour force participation 41.7 per cent (2023-24); women hold 55.7 per cent of Jan Dhan accounts; women are over one-third of the workforce in 237 districts (ASUSE 2025)
