India is way behind the rest of the world - at least most of it - in parity of the two sexes considering pay, education, health and economic representation, according to a World Economic Forum report.

The report, ranks India at 112 out of the 134 countries surveyed.

The report says, “India and Pakistan perform above average on the political empowerment of women, particularly India, but lag behind in the other three categories. In particular, the persistent health, education and economic participation gaps will be detrimental to India’s growth; India is the lowest ranked of the BRIC economies featured in the index.”

The last three spots have been occupied by Pakistan (132), followed by Chad (133) and Yemen at 134.

Saadia Zahidi, director and head of constituents, World Economic Forum said, “The 2010 report brings together five years worth of data. We find that out of the 134 countries covered over this time period 86 percent have narrowed their gender gaps, while 14 percent are regressing.”

However, Nordic countries led by Iceland has been positioned as the world’s best country in terms of gender equality. The other Nordic nations Norway, Finland and Sweden have occupied second, third and fourth spot in the survey.

“In the Nordic countries, women live longer, have high employment rates and often enjoy generous maternity and paternity schemes. There are more than 1.5 women for every man enrolled in tertiary education,” said the report.

The Global Gender Gap Index 2010 tracks progress on four aspects: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.  

The Switzerland-based organisation also highlighted the achievement of some of the developing nations in this regard. According to the report, “Lesotho, Philippines and South Africa were more equal than the UK, which was 15th in the global list. Lesotho, which rose two places to 8th, is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to have no gender gap in either education or health.”

It is not that only developing countries lag behind. Some of the developed countries have also fared badly according to the report. Japan and France are ranked at ninety-four and forty six respectively.

Read the report