Gender Equality: Bangladesh best in South Asia

Bangladesh has been ranked as the top South Asian gender-equal country in the World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap Report 2023", obtaining the position since 2016.

This year, the 17th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks gender parity across 146 countries, providing a basis for robust cross-country analysis.

Globally, Bangladesh ranks 59th with a score of 72.2 percent, improving from the 71st position last year, according to the report published recently.

"The country's trajectory is mostly characterised by continuous progress of Political Empowerment," says the latest report, adding, at 55.2 percent parity, Bangladesh ranks seventh globally on this subindex.

Bangladesh has had a woman head of state for 29.3 years out of the last 50 years, the longest duration in the world, as per the report.

However, its shares of women in ministerial (10pc) and parliamentary positions (20.9pc) are relatively low, it adds.

On Health and Survival (96.2pc), there is parity in sex ratio at birth, the report says.

However, gender parity in healthy life expectancy has been dropping as men's life expectancy has been increasing faster than that of women since the 2020 edition, it says.

Bangladesh's Educational Attainment parity is at 93.6 percent. Both women and men's literacy rate and enrolment in secondary and tertiary education has been increasing steadily over the last decade, it adds.

At 43.8 percent parity, Bangladesh's Economic Participation and Opportunity sub-index performance is one of the lowest globally (139th), according to the report.

However, this marks a recovery to its 2020 parity level. Improvement in the estimated earned income since 2021 edition has helped drive this recovery, as the gaps across the other indicators show less change.

The report shows seven South Asian countries along with Iran and Afghanistan-- has achieved 63.4 percent gender parity, the second-lowest score of the eight regions studied.

Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are the best-performing countries in the region, while Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are at the bottom of both the regional and global ranking tables.

Nepal, Maldives, and India obtain the fourth, fifth and sixth position respectively in the region.

At the current rate of progress, full parity in the region will be achieved in 149 years, as per the report.

According to the 2023 Global Gender Gap Index, no country has yet achieved full gender parity.

For the 14th year running, Iceland (91.2 percent) takes the global top position in gender parity.

The global top five is completed by three other Nordic countries -- Norway (2nd), Finland (3rd) and Sweden (5th) -- with New Zealand ranking 4th.