Pakistan(National Times)- KARACHI: Pakistan has been ranked at the bottom of the World Economic Forum\u2019s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, placing 148th out of 148 countries, The News reported. The report, released on Wednesday, assigned Pakistan a gender parity score of 56.7% \u2014 a 0.3 percentage point decline from its 2024 score. This marks the second consecutive drop in Pakistan\u2019s score, which peaked at 57.7% in 2023. The Global Gender Gap Index assesses gender equality across four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. Despite ranking last, Pakistan\u2019s position has only declined by three places from last year\u2019s 145th. At the top of the index, Iceland retained its leading position. In the South Asian region, Bangladesh ranked highest at 24th globally, while India stood at 131st overall and fifth regionally. Since launching in 2006, it has been the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries\u2019 efforts to close gaps across these dimensions and move towards gender parity over time. Despite the recent drops and its bottom ranking on this year\u2019s report, Pakistan has closed +2.3 of its gender gap since 2006. The sole subindex advance registered by Pakistan in this year\u2019s edition is \u2018Educational Attainment\u2019, bumping educational parity upwards by +1.5 percentage points to reach 85.1%. The report argues that part of the shift is driven by an increase in female literacy rates (from 46.5% to 48.5%). However, parity has also risen because male enrolment shares have dropped in tertiary education, increasing the relative balance between men and women but lowering educational reach overall. Pakistan ranks 137th out of 148 countries on the \u2018Educational Attainment\u2019 subindex, and its highest subindex rank, 118th, is in \u2018Political Empowerment\u2019. However, Pakistan\u2019s score on \u2018Political Empowerment\u2019 has dropped from 12.2% in 2024 to 11% for this year. Despite a rise in parity in parliament, the country was listed among those with all-male ministerial cabinets. The country\u2019s highest score is on the \u2018Health and Survival\u2019 subindex at 95.9%, and it attained a score of 34.7% on \u2018Economic Participation and Opportunity\u2019. The report says that income disparity in Pakistan has increased slightly since the last edition (+.02 points), as has perceived wage inequality (+4 percentage points). Overall, the report finds that there is still a combined global average gender gap of over 30% across the four areas that it covers. The global gender gap score in 2025 for all 148 economies included in this edition of the index stands at 68.8%, rising slightly from 68.4% in 2024. In her comments on this year\u2019s report, WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi says that it \u201carrives at a decisive moment, with the world in flux. Technological breakthroughs, geopolitical conflict, and economic uncertainty are creating unprecedented challenges as well as bringing new opportunities. Amid such change, gender parity is both a principle and a strategy.\u201d According to the managing director, \u201cEconomies that tap into the full spectrum of their talent and human capital are best positioned to navigate an era of transformation and accelerate productivity and prosperity. Yet most economies are not fully leveraging this pathway for growth\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan(National Times)- KARACHI: Pakistan has been ranked at the bottom of the World Economic Forum\u2019s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, placing 148th out of 148 countries, The News reported. The report, released on Wednesday, assigned Pakistan a gender parity score of 56.7% \u2014 a 0.3 percentage point decline from its 2024 score. This marks the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n