Metro Manila, July 17 ------ The Philippines has placed 19th out of 146 countries included in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap report this year, two notches lower than its 2021 ranking.
The country attained a score of 0.783, down 0.001 from what it earned last year where it ranked 17th out of 156 covered nations. The nearer a country’s score to 1, the better it is at observing gender equality. In terms of subindices, the Philippines fared worse in Educational Attainment. It ranked 46th, seven rungs down from its place in 2021. The country scored 0.997 this year, compared to 0.999 last year. “On Educational Attainment, gender parity decreased at the level of enrollment in primary education, with a notably larger share of boys than girls in growing enrollment numbers overall,” said the WEF. In the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, the Philippines placed 18th with a score of 0.794. Its ranking remained the same compared to last year, but it scored lower by 0.001. “While the entire labor force was impacted, in 2022 the share of women participating in the workforce was still 24.5 percentage points lower than the share of men,” the report read. For other subindices, the WEF said there were no significant changes for the Philippines. For instance, the country’s Health and Survival score was steady at 0.979. It ranked 30th this year, higher by four spots than its 2021 place. In the Political Empowerment subindex, where it fell two notches to rank 35th, its score dropped by 0.002 to 0.360 this year. “Gender parity for legislative, senior officers and managers, as well as for professional and technical workers, remains constant,” added the WEF. Still, the Philippines came second among 19 East Asia and the Pacific countries listed by the Switzerland-based organization, which was unchanged from last year.
WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi noted how the progress towards gender parity had stalled amid “multi-layered and compounding crises” like higher living costs, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate emergency, and large-scale conflict and displacement. “Not only are millions of women and girls losing out on access and opportunity at present, this halt in progress towards parity is a catastrophe for the future of our economies, societies and communities. Accelerating parity must be a core part of the public and private agenda,” added Zahidi. Iceland remained at the top spot this year with a score of 0.908. Finland (0.860), Norway (0.845), New Zealand (0.841), and Sweden (0.822) again occupied the second to fifth rankings in 2022.
Source: cnnphilippines.com
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