India’s performance across the four dimensions of the GGG Index economic participation: educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment, tell a story of stalled momentum. https://thewire.in/gender/indias-worsening-gender-gap-is-not-just-a-statistical-concern-its-a-structural-crisis
According to the latest rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index 2025, India ranks 131st out of 148 nations. Although India’s performative score rose marginally from 64.1% in 2024 to 64.4%, this nominal improvement is more superficial without any critical endogenous (or internalised) changes seen in its gender-gap landscape.
The numbers here which suggest progress do not move with lived experiences of the average Indian women who say otherwise. Despite being literate, qualified, eager to participate in the nation’s development story, women as part of the gendered community continue to find most doors to real, economic opportunity firmly shut.
India has seen a continued decline in women’s political empowerment. Female representation in Parliament has dropped from 14.7% to 13.8%, while ministerial roles held by women fell from 6.5% to 5.6%. These regressions point not just to underrepresentation but to a systematic failure to create durable pathways for women in power. The Women Reservation Bill is still ink on paper without a clear implementation plan in sight.
The Access (In)Equality Index (AEI) thus reveals a more unsettling truth for most: the structural problem of gender gap is also just not in the absence of opportunity, but the erosion of meaningful access. The Indian nation-state has mistaken visibility for inclusion, and tokenism for transformation. Patchwork schemes and symbolic gestures cannot resolve the deep-rooted causes of gender disparity including unpaid care burdens, unsafe public spaces, patriarchal institutions, and a persistent digital divide.
by Aditi Desai, Anania Singhal and Deepanshu Mohan