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The World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual Gender Gap Report, 2023 said that India has ranked at 127 out of 146 countries in terms of gender parity -- an improvement of eight places from last year. The WEF ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index in the report's 2022 edition. India has improved by 1.4 percentage points and eight positions since the last edition, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 parity level.

According to the report, the country has attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education. India has closed 64.3 per cent of the overall gender gap. However, it underlined that India has reached only 36.7 per cent parity on economic participation and opportunity. The index ranked India's neighbours Pakistan at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103.

The report pointed out that in India, while there has been uptick in parity in wages and income, the share of women in senior positions and technical roles have dropped slightly since the last edition. On political empowerment, India has registered 25.3 per cent parity, with women representing 15.1 per cent of parliamentarians -- the highest for the country since the inaugural report in 2006. Out of the 117 countries with available data since 2017, 18 countries -- including Bolivia (50.4 per cent), India (44.4 per cent) and France (42.3 per cent) -- have achieved women's representation of over 40 per cent in local governance.