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India retained the 131st rank on the Global Gender Gap Index 2026 released by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, with Iceland, Finland and Norway maintaining their top three slots respectively. Only 14 countries ranked below than India on the index of 145 countries. These include Papua New Guinea, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Mali, Algeria and Congo. Chad was the lowest-ranked country in the index, with Iran and Pakistan joining it in the bottom three. Geneva-based WEF said that nearly every economy tracked since 2006 by the index has advanced gender parity, but noted that full parity is still 120 years away. Globally, 69.2 per cent of the gender gap has now been closed, up by 0.4 percentage points over the last year, the WEF said. 100 per cent representing full parity. In India, the world's most populous country with approximately 1.5 billion people, the progress towards gender parity stood at 64.5 per cent, below the global average. While .
Women in blue-collar jobs in India continue to face systemic hurdles that limit their career growth, as their participation in the workforce remains predominantly in lower-skilled, lower-paid, and less stable roles, a report said on Friday. According to the report by tech-enabled blue-collar hiring platform WorkIndia, women are increasingly channeled into gendered roles like telecalling and maid services, while opportunities in fields like field sales, marketing, and back-office jobs are shrinking. The overall number of job postings for women in India showed a slight uptick in 2023 (0.4 per cent), but in 2024 it witnessed a 5.3 per cent drop, the report said. "This reduction hints at more than just a statistical anomaly, it underscores a deeper issue in gender equality, particularly in blue-collar jobs. Women's participation in the workforce remains predominantly in lower-skilled, lower-paid, and less stable roles," the report said. The WorkIndia report is based on an analysis of o
At first glance, the European Union may seem like a paragon of gender equality what with Ursula von der Leyen heading the all-important executive branch. Still, all the talk this week is about an excess of men poised for top positions at the EU headquarters. Not that von der Leyen, the first woman to hold the position as European Commission president, would want anything other than full gender parity in the body that runs the day-to-day business of the world's biggest trading bloc of 450 million people. One of its key objectives is achieving gender balance in decision-making, the strategy of von der Leyen's outgoing European Commission boldly proclaimed. Her office was committed to lead by example, with the first female Commission president selected in 2019, and the first gender-balanced College of Commissioners during this time. When it comes to gender issues, the 27-nation EU is often seen as perhaps the most progressive grouping of countries in the world, leaving other nations a