Thailand's gender parity scores improve, pushing it up 5 places
Thailand has jumped five places to rank 74th among 146 countries in the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s latest Global Gender Gap Index.
The index, released last week, showed that Thailand had risen by 0.002 percentage points, which pushed it to 74th from 79.
WEF released its first Global Gender Gap Index in 2006 in a bid to assess gender equality and assess gender gap in four key areas, namely:
• Economic participation and opportunity
• Educational attainment
• Health and survival
• Political empowerment
Though the overall global scores rose to 68.4% from 68.1%, gender parity scores in East Asia and the Pacific slumped by 0.2 percentage points.
The report showed that though 11 of 19 countries in the region showed improvement, one stayed the same and eight, including China, dropped on the overall index, with Fiji, Myanmar and Japan at the bottom of the list.
According to WEF, it will take the region 189 years to reach proper gender parity levels.
As for Thailand’s scores, it won 0.772 percentage points in economic participation and opportunity, rising to 24th in the list. In educational attainment, it came in at 61 with a score of 0.995 percentage points. In health and survival, it was ranked 42nd with a score of 0.977 percentage points, though it touched the bottom of the barrel at 120th with a score of 0.101 in political empowerment.
Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had always attached great importance to promoting gender equality in society. He said keeping the principles of human rights and the 2015 Gender Equality Act in mind, the outgoing government had taken concrete steps to create opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds.
He added that Thailand’s improved ranking in the WEF index serves as motivation to continue working towards achieving rapid and fair success.
The top five countries that have closed the gender gap the most are Iceland at 91.2%, Norway (87.9%), Finland (86.3%), Sweden (81.5%) and New Zealand (85.6%). Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia and Lithuania have also moved closer to 80% in closing the gender gap.
