Gender Gap widens in Sri Lanka in 2015 on lack of women participation in politics and labor force

Sri Lanka's gender gap increased over the last year and gender equality ranking declined from a 79 in 2014 to a 84 this year out of 145 countries, a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum showed. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2015 showed that Sri Lanka has been slipping from its privileged position in the top 20 since 2010. Sri Lanka fell from closing 74.6 percent of the gender gap in 2010 to 68.6 percent this year.

The tenth annual edition of the Report ranks 145 countries on their ability to close the gender gap in four key areas: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Sri Lanka scored high in educational attainment and health and survival but the low score in political empowerment brought down the overall score. Sri Lanka's gender gap in education, and Health and Survival remains closed, ranking at first place in the key area. In the educational attainment Sri Lanka ranked 57 among 145 countries closing the gender gap in in enrollment in primary to tertiary education. However, in literacy rate the gap was 2% with a female-to-male ratio of 0.98. The country ranked 69th in the Enrolment in Primary Education indicator. Its high performance on the Wage equality for similar work indicator is offset by a low score on the Estimated earned income indicator. In the area of economic participation and opportunity Sri Lanka slipped 11 notches from last year scoring 0.577 with overall ranking at 120th place. Very low scores on the Women in parliament and Women in ministerial positions indicators are offset by a high score on the Years with a female head of state indicator, with 21 years with a female head of state out of the last 50. In Political Empowerment Sri Lanka ranked 59th with a score of 0.193. Nordic countries retained the top four spots they held last year, led by Iceland. Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Ireland followed in that order to hold the top five spots. In Asia and the Pacific, the Philippines remains the region's highest-ranked country at 7th, followed by New Zealand (10) and Australia (36). Sri Lanka rounded up the top ten at 10th place. In South Asia, Bangladesh ranked at 64th, India improved to 108th from last year's 114th, Nepal ranked 110th, Maldives at 113, Bhutan at 118, and Pakistan ranked in the bottom at 144th.