Close the gap: It’s appalling!

Hillary Clinton’s predicted win in the US presidential elections may tilt the scales a bit in the gender wage gap. If this happens, Hillary at the White House on a US President’s pay may trim a few days off the estimated 170 years it will take for true gender equality in this unequal world. The World Economic Forum’s move to revise its 2015 estimate sharply up from 118 years to 170 years to equal pay nirvana is an index of how much our male-dominated world has regressed in a year in stalling or reversing closing of the gap. More than anything, the fault may lie in our attitudes.

India is 87th on this list, behind Bangladesh (72). The report notes there’s been progress “in closing the gap on wage equality and across all indicators of the Educational Attainment sub-index, fully closing primary and secondary education enrolment gender gaps”. But the regression seems to have been not so much in women’s estimated earned income as in India being ranked the world’s third lowest in Health and Survival. “India remains the world’s least-improved country on this sub-index over the past decade,” it notes. The truth is self-evident given the deaths that still occur in childbirth in India due to the conditions prevailing in many remote rural areas. There has rarely been any concern on political empowerment though women have served as Prime Minister and chief ministers, but the gender ratio in Parliament and the state legislatures remains low. But if India is ranked 87 of 144 nations, there is real cause for concern.