India could boost 2025 GDP by 60% by promoting gender diversity at work: McKinsey report

India is clubbed among the lowest scorers in parameters such as gender equality in work

India would be the biggest beneficiary — potentially boost its 2015 gross domestic product (GDP) by 60 per cent (an estimated $2.9 trillion) — if it were to use the full potential of women in its workforce, said a report by McKinsey Global Institute.

Building a case for closing the global gender gap in work across all countries, the report, ‘The power of parity: How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion in global growth’, states that in a “full potential” scenario - in which women play an identical role in labour markets to that of men - as much as $28 trillion, or 26 per cent, could be added to global annual GDP by 2025. In 46 of the 95 countries analysed, GDP could be more than 10 per cent higher than the current forecasts, with the highest relative regional boost in India (16 per cent) and Latin America (11 per cent), the report said.

However, India has a long way to go if it were to reap any upside of narrowing gender inequality at work. Going by McKinsey Global Institute’s Gender Parity Score (GPS), a scoring system that measures the size of the gap that individual country would need to bridge to achieve parity, the country is clubbed among the lowest scorers in parameters such as gender equality in work, labour-force participation rate, legal protection and political representation, physical security and violence against women.

Among the 10 regional groups, India’s aggregate GPS is 0.48, at par with West Asia and North Africa, and second lowest from the bottom (0.44 for South Asia, excluding India). The country ranks at the bottom when it comes to gender equality in work (0.30), clubbed along with South Asia - even sub-Saharan Africa score higher on this parameter (0.56). When it comes to labour force participation rate, India has score of 0.34, second lowest after West Asia and North Africa (0.32). Indian woman are again at the receiving end when it comes to political representation (0.11), scoring the lowest among all countries. The study said though women were half the world’s working-age population, they generate 37 per cent of global GDP. In this case too, India scores poorly with women accounting for 17 per cent of GDP in 2014 ($2.1 trillion), while they comprise 24 per cent of the total workforce.

Jonathan Woetzel, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, said, “This report shows how much the global economy stands to gain from accelerating momentum toward gender parity. But capturing the economic benefits will mean addressing gender inequality in society as well as attitudes.”

The report noted companies could further promote gender diversity in the workplace by supporting gender initiatives in their supply chains, distribution channels, and the broader community.