Gender gap in Philippines worsens for first time, says report

The Philippine ranking in a survey that measures the gap between men and women fell for the first time in four years, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report released Wednesday. The Philippines ranked ninth with a score of 0.758 in the Switzerland-based group’s Global Gender Gap Index, which measures economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, health and survival of women in 134 countries.

The Index is designed to measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in individual countries rather than the actual levels of the available resources and opportunities in those countries.

Better than neighbors

The country, however, lost ground for the first time in four years but remains the leading Asian country in the rankings.

Since 2006 the Philippines was in the sixth place.

“The Philippines is one of the two countries in Asia [along with Mongolia] to have closed the gender gap on both education and health and is among only 12 in the world to have done so,” the report said.

For economic participation in opportunity, the country ranked 11th with an index score of 0.594; educational attainment, first, 0.930; health and survival, first, 0.960 and political empowerment, 19th with a score of 0.169.

The report said the country’s gains in political empowerment were partially offset by a drop in women’s labor force participation as well as in the perceived wage equality between women and men employed in similar positions.

Ranked first was Iceland followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Ireland and Lesotho.

In Southeast Asia, Thailand ranked 59th; Vietnam, 71st; Singapore, 85th; Indonesia, 93rd; Malaysia, 101st; and South Korea, 115th.

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of World Economic Forum said that girls and women make up one half of the world’s population and without their engagement, empowerment and contribution, people could not hope to achieve a rapid economic recovery nor effectively tackle global challenges such as climate change, food security and conflict.

Long way to go

Despite the improvement in some rankings, the forum said there was still much work to be done in education, health, the workplace, legislation and politics before women around the globe enjoy the same opportunities as men.

“There are still millions of ‘missing’ women each year because of the preference for sons in some parts of the world.

It added that there were too many female infants who do not receive adequate access to healthcare because of the lower value placed on girls, adding to the global burden of infant mortality.

“Girls are still missing out on primary and secondary education in far greater numbers than boys, thus depriving entire families, communities and economies of the proven and positive multiplier effects generated by girls’ education and instead aggravating poverty, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and maternal and infant mortality,” according to the report.

It said that 13 out of the 14 variables used to create the Index are from publicly available hard data indicators from international organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization.

The World Economic Forum is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation compose of top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists. –Darwin G. Amojelar, Senior Reporter, Manila Times