Sri Lanka’s gender gap widens in global gender equality rankings

Sri Lanka’s gender gap increased over the last year, and gender equality ranking declined from a 100 in 2018 to 102 this year out of 153 countries, a report released Monday by the World Economic Forum showed.

The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2020 showed that Sri Lanka has been slipping from its privileged position in the top 20 since 2006. Sri Lanka fell from closing 72% of the gender gap in 2010 to 68% this year, with a score of 0.680 in the index.

The report measures the gap between men and women in four key areas: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. According to the report, while Sri Lanka remained on the top in health and education, the gender gap between women and men’s Economic and Political Participation has widened.

In labour force participation, Sri Lanka ranked at the 133rd position, with only 38.2% women working. The gender gap widened in the category of Women in Parliament, placing Sri Lanka among the Middle Eastern countries at the 145th position out of the 153 countries surveyed.

In South Asia, Bangladesh has closed 72.6% of its overall gender gap and ranks 50th on the index. Bangladesh is the best performer in South Asia, ahead of Nepal (101st) and Sri Lanka (102nd), India (112th) and Pakistan (151st).

Iceland is once again the most gender-equal country in the world for the 11th time in a row. It has closed almost 88% of its overall gender gap, followed by Norway (84.2%), Finland (83.2%), Sweden (82%), and Nicaragua (80.4%).

The WEF said the sobering finding of the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 is that so little progress had been made in tackling the problem that it would take 100 years to close the global gender gap. “None of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, and nor likely will many of our children,” it said.