India was on Wednesday ranked low, at 135th place, in terms of gender parity, despite an improvement of five places since last year on better performance in areas of economic participation and opportunity. As per the annual Gender Gap Report 2022 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) released in Geneva. Only 11 countries are ranked below India on the index of 146 nations, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Iran and Chad being the worst five.

Iceland retained its place as the world’s most gender-equal country, followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden. On the health and survival subindex, India ranked the lowest at 146th place and figured among the five countries with gender gaps larger than 5 per cent; the other four being Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and China.