Sri Lanka widens gender gap in wage equality

Sri Lanka ranked as low as 109 of 144 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report-2017 and widened its gender gap in wage equality for similar work.

According to the latest report which was released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Thursday, Sri Lanka scored 0.669 this year whereas it scored 0.673 last year and remained at 100 of 144 countries.

A country score of 0.000 showed imparity while a score of 1.000 meant parity. When the index was compiled in 2006 for the first time ever, Sri Lanka ranked at 13 out of 115 countries.

“Sri Lanka has widened its gender gap in the sub-index of ‘wage equality for similar work’ despite a modest increase in parity in ‘estimated earned income’. However, Sri Lanka is the only country in the South Asian region which has fully closed its ‘health and survival’ gender gap,” the report said.

With an average remaining gender gap of 34%, South Asia is the second-lowest scoring region on this year’s Global Gender Gap Index, ahead of the Middle East and North Africa and behind Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sri Lanka’s neighbours Bangladesh was ranked at 47, Maldives at 106, India at 108, Nepal at 111, Bhutan at 124 and Pakistan at 143.

“Bangladesh and the Maldives are the top-ranked countries in the region while the lowest-ranked countries are Bhutan and Pakistan. Nepal is one of the top five climbers over the past decade on the overall Index. From a low base, South Asia has made the fastest progress on closing its gender gap of any world region,” the index report said.

It said on average basis, low-income countries have closed 92% of their labour market participation gender gaps.

“By contrast, lower-middle income countries such as Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Guatemala and Indonesia have closed only 67% of their labour market participation gender gaps,” it said.

Nordic countries such as Iceland, Norway and Finland ranked at first, second and third places of the index followed by Rwanda, Sweden, Nicaragua, Slovenia, Ireland, New Zealand and Philippines in the top ten places respectively.

Yemen made it to the bottom of the index by being slotted in the 144th place followed by Pakistan, Syria, Chad and Iran. (Lahiru Pothmulla)