A recent report jointly prepared by UN Women and UNDP, titled “The Paths to Equal”, unveils the dire state of women’s empowerment and gender equality worldwide. Analyzing 114 countries, the report reveals that the majority of women face significant gender gaps and limited empowerment. Shockingly, over 90 percent of the world’s female population, approximately 3.1 billion women and girls, reside in countries characterised by both a large women’s empowerment deficit and a substantial gender gap. The report introduces two new indices to shed light on these challenges: the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) and the Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI). Across the five dimensions of health, education, inclusion, decision making, and violence against women, women and girls achieve only 60 percent of their full potential, as measured by WEI. Additionally, GGPI highlights high gender disparities in crucial aspects of human development such as health, education, inclusion, and decision making, where women achieve, on average, 28 percent less than men.
Notably, the report emphasises that despite higher levels of human development, women’s empowerment and gender equality do not automatically follow. Of the 114 countries analyzed, 85 exhibit low or middle levels of women’s empowerment and struggle to achieve gender parity, even among those with high or very high human development. India, specifically, falls within the low women’s empowerment and gender gap group of countries, with values of 0.520 and 0.560 respectively in 2022. The country also ranks in the medium value group for Human Development in 2021. The report exposes several concerning statistics for India. For instance, only 77.5 percent of women aged 15-49 have their family planning needs satisfied, and the adolescent birth rate stands at 16.3 per 1,000 women aged 15-19. Additionally, the percentage of women aged 25 and above with completed secondary education is a mere 24.9 percent. Alarming figures also arise concerning labor and financial inclusion, with a labor force participation rate of 27.1 percent among prime-working-age women and 43.5 percent of female youth between 15-24 years not in education, employment, or training.
Political representation of women remains disheartening, with women holding only 14.7 percent of seats in Parliament in 2023 and a slightly higher representation of 44.4 percent in local government (2015-22), primarily due to reservation provisions under the Panchayati Raj System. Moreover, the share of marginal positions held by women from 2012-22 stands at a meager 15.9 percent. Regrettably, freedom from violence remains elusive, as only 18 percent of women aged 15-49 reported no violence by their present or former intimate partners in the previous 12 months in 2018. The report concludes that achieving gender equality and empowering women requires urgent targeted interventions and policy reforms. Simply focusing on higher human development is insufficient to bridge the gaps. Furthermore, the global community’s failure to make progress toward gender equality by 2030, exacerbated by recent crises, emphasises the critical need for immediate action. As the world faces these pressing challenges, the report serves as a wake-up call, emphasising the importance of securing the human rights of women and girls and fully realising their fundamental freedoms. It is imperative that gender gaps are eliminated to truly empower women and girls and achieve gender equality on a global scale.
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