At 131, India among lowest-ranked in S Asia with parity score of 64.1%
New Delhi: India has ranked 131 out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, slipping two places from its position last year.
With a parity score of just 64.1%, India is among the lowest-ranked countries in South Asia, according to the report released on Thursday. India ranked 129 last year out of 146 countries.
“In 2025, India ranks 131st, with an overall gender parity score of 64.4%. Compared to the 2024 edition, India sees a relative drop in rank due to the performance of other economies,” it said.
The Global Gender Gap Index measures gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment.
The Indian economy’s overall performance improved in absolute terms by +0.3 points.
“One of the dimensions where India increases parity is in Economic Participation and Opportunity where its score improves by +.9 percentage points to 40.7%. While most indicator values remain the same, parity in estimated earned income rises from 28.6% to 29.9%, positively impacting the subindex score,” the report said.
Scores in labour force participation rate remained the same (45.9%) as last year – India’s highest achieved to date.
In educational attainment, the report said, India scored 97.1%, reflecting positive shifts in female shares for literacy and tertiary education enrolment, which resulted in positive score improvements for the subindex as a whole.
“India also records higher parity in health and survival, driven by improved scores in sex ratio at birth and in healthy life expectancy,” it said. However, similar to other countries, parity in healthy life expectancy is obtained despite an overall reduction in the life expectancy of men and women, the report said.
“Where India records a slight drop in parity (-0.6 points) since the last edition is in Political Empowerment. Female representation in Parliament falls from 14.7% to 13.8% in 2025, lowering the indicator score for the second year in a row below 2023 levels,” it said.
Similarly, the share of women in ministerial roles falls from 6.5% to 5.6%, moving the indicator score (5.9%) further away this year from its highest level (30% in 2019), it said.
With notable gains in political empowerment and economic participation, Bangladesh emerged as the best performer in South Asia, jumping 75 ranks to rank 24 globally. Nepal ranked 125, Sri Lanka 130, Bhutan 119, Maldives 138 and Pakistan ranked at the bottom among all countries at 148.
“In 2025, Southern Asia ranks 7th, with a gender parity score of 64.6%. Of the seven economies that make up the regional block, only Bangladesh (24th, 77.5%) places in the top 50,” the report said.
In Economic Participation and Opportunity, the region scores 40.6%. Over time, Southern Asia has increased its parity score for economic representation for senior workers (+9.1 percentage points) and for professional and technical workers (+17.2 percentage points). However, the parity score in estimated earned income has dropped by -7.8 percentage points.
In Educational Attainment, Southern Asia ranks sixth at 95.4%. Economies show high levels of variance in literacy parity: In Nepal and Pakistan, the literacy parity score is below 75%, while full parity is observed in the Maldives.
The Health and Survival score of Southern Asia is 95.5%. Over time, sparse advances in healthy life expectancy (+0.9 percentage points) are countered by parity losses in the sex ratio at birth (-1 percentage point).
In Political Empowerment, Southern Asia places fourth with a score of 26.8%. In 2006, the region had the highest baseline (2006) score of all regions, at 21.9%. Since then, it has advanced political parity by 4.9 percentage points – and has been since outstripped by other regions.
Of the seven economies in the block, only Bangladesh has achieved political parity at the head-of-state level.
At the parliamentary level, Bhutan and Maldives are the only two economies with parity scores under 5%.
The report said the global gender gap has closed to 68.8%, marking the strongest annual advancement since the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet full parity remains 123 years away at current rates, according to the report.
Iceland leads the rankings for the 16th year running, followed by Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The 19th edition of the report, which covers 148 economies, revealed both encouraging momentum and persistent structural barriers facing women worldwide.
