An uneven road to gender parity

India’s position in the Global Gender Gap Report 2025 offers a stark reality check: despite economic growth and social awareness, structural gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched. Ranked 131st out of 148 countries, India posted a parity score of 64.1%, a modest uptick from 2024, but still trailing the global average of 68.8%. The report from the World Economic Forum benchmarks nations across four pillars: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. India’s advancements are uneven. While women’s health and education show encouraging trends, their participation in the workforce and politics remains woefully stagnant.

In education, India achieves near parity with a score of 97.1%, and higher female enrolment in tertiary education compared to previous years. Closing the gender gap in education is no small achievement and sets a foundation for future transformation. However, Economic Participation, where India scores only 40.7%, reveals a grim disparity. Income parity, at 29.9%, lags even further, as women’s average earnings remain significantly lower than men’s. Despite more women entering the workforce, the reality is that most remain confined to low-paying, insecure jobs.

Health and Survival shows moderate improvement, with gains in the sex ratio at birth and life expectancy narrowing gender differences. Yet, public discourse continues to wrestle with alarming levels of child undernutrition and maternal mortality, which reflect persistent inequities in protection and care. The most troubling lag lies in Political Empowerment. Meanwhile, women’s political representation remains symbolic rather than substantive. Female representation in Parliament has fallen from 14.7% to 13.8%, while ministerial representation has dropped from 6.5% to 5.6% — far from the 30% marker for meaningful parity. The political process thus remains largely impervious to women’s leadership. True gender justice requires more than legislative quotas — it demands a shift in social attitudes and power structures.

Particularly striking is the regional context. While Bangladesh ranks 24th, India trails far behind its South Asian peers — including Nepal (125), Sri Lanka (130), Bhutan (119) — and outperforms only Pakistan (148). That a triumvirate of South Asian nations outshines India on gender equality should prompt serious introspection.

The deeper significance emerges when we correlate the gender gap with broader development outcomes. The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2025 Human Development Report placed India at 130th on the Human Development Index (HDI) but improved to 102nd on the Gender Inequality Index (GII) — a nod to more women accessing health and education services. While this reflects progress, it also signals the limits of current trajectories. The GII captures maternal mortality, adolescent birth rates, political representation and education — sectors where India continues to lag significantly.

Consistent themes appear across the indices: more girls in school, but limited work opportunities; improvements in health, but persistent mortality; and progress in education, yet stagnation at the leadership table. These contradictions underscore a systemic failure to transform access into agency.

What explains this disconnect? Economic paradigms further complicate the picture. India’s female labour force participation rate remains among the world’s lowest, hovering around 40%, with many women forced into informal or precarious work in agriculture and unregulated gig sectors. Without legal protections, workplace safety and job security, women remain vulnerable despite their increasing visibility in the workforce.

Moreover, India lags sharply behind other regions. Central Asia and East Asia & the Pacific, for instance, score around 69–70%, with stronger labour-market parity and political inclusion. For India, breaking the 64% plateau isn’t just aspirational — it’s essential for regional competitiveness and long-term stability.

To rekindle progress, India must translate educational gains into gainful employment. This means bolstering women’s access to finance, quality childcare, workplace safety and land ownership rights. For example, although women hold 14.9% of agricultural land, they often lack decision-making power over its use and produce minimal income from it.

On the political front, quotas are necessary but insufficient. Empowerment must be supported by training in governance, mandatory gender budgeting and platforms encouraging women’s leadership at both local and national levels.

India’s gender challenge is neither incidental nor peripheral — it is structural. The economy may be growing, but gender-inclusive growth remains elusive. The country’s comparatively low ranking in the Global Gender Gap Report holds up a mirror to deeper societal gaps. If India is serious about its global aspirations — from economic power to social justice — it must achieve more than growth; it must ensure parity. For, only when every woman can stand equal in health, work and leadership will India’s rise be complete.

(The writer is an associate professor, Department of Economics, Christ Deemed to be University)