Bangladesh has secured eighth position among the Asia-Pacific countries in the rankings of gender equality, achieving its highest ever overall score.
World Economic Forum has published the Global Gender Gap 2014 Report on Wednesday.
According to the report, Bangladesh has achieved its highest ever overall score. Compared to 2006, Bangladesh has experienced important improvements in the Economic Participation and Opportunity and the Educational Attainment and Health and Survival sub indexes.
Bangladesh ranks 127th on the Economic Participation and Opportunity sub index, with a score well below the sub index average.
“However, the country is among the ten lowest-performing countries on the Legislators, senior officials and manager and professional and technical workers indicators.
Bangladesh ranks 111th on the Educational Attainment sub index and is the best performing country from the region on the Enrolment in primary education indicator and among the top 10 countries on the Enrolment in secondary education indicator.”
It ranks 122nd on the Health and Survival sub index and is part of the twenty lowest-performing countries on the Healthy life expectancy indicator. Its strength lies in Political Empowerment, where the country ranks 10th, due to a very high score on the Years with female head of state indicator, said the report.
After Mali, Bangladesh is the second-ranked country with the highest percentage of women in early marriage.
The female singulate mean age at marriage is one of the lowest, at 18.6 years. Bangladesh is also one of the countries with the lowest percentage of firms with female top managers and with female participation in ownership.
Philippines and New Zealand have ranked first and second receptively in the list.
The report ranks 142 countries on their ability to close the gender gap in four fundamental areas that include economic participation and opportunity, education, health and survival, and political empowerment.
In 2014, the Asia-Pacific region has closed 66% of its overall gender gap. Out of the 18 countries in the region, 11 have improved their overall score, six have seen their score decreased and one has stayed the same compared to last year.
