Context

• India stands at a crossroads in its development journey, a global economic power, a digital innovator, and the world’s youngest nation by population, yet, beneath these commendable achievements lies a troubling paradox.
• The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2025) places India at 131 out of 148 countries, revealing an unsettling truth: gender inequality remains a deep-seated and structural impediment to the nation’s progress.
• Therefore, it is important to analyse the multidimensional nature of India’s gender gap, particularly in economic participation and health.

Reasons Behind India’s Gender Gap

• Structural Failures
  • India’s poor ranking is most alarming in the domains of economic participation and health and survival, two pillars that are foundational to gender equity.
  • While improvements have been noted in educational attainment, they have not translated into broader wellbeing or workforce participation for women.
  • The nation’s sex ratio at birth remains severely skewed, underscoring a persistent and dangerous cultural preference for sons.
  • Further, a decline in healthy life expectancy for women indicates chronic neglect in reproductive and preventive healthcare.
• Skewed Health Outcomes
  • A particularly sobering statistic is that 57% of Indian women aged 15–49 are anaemic, significantly limiting their capacity to learn, earn, and safely bear children.
  • Despite the scale and solvability of such problems, policy responses remain insufficient.
  • The lack of investment in primary healthcare and reproductive services, especially for rural and economically vulnerable women, reflects a structural failure to prioritise women’s health as a national development goal.
  • As the text emphasizes, without good health, economic inclusion becomes impossible.
• Economic Exclusion and Invisible Labour
  • India ranks 143rd on the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, highlighting the extent of gendered economic exclusion.
  • Women earn less than a third of what men earn, and their participation in the formal workforce is disproportionately low.
  • These gaps are not only socially unjust but also economically self-defeating.
  • A McKinsey Global Institute report (2015) estimated that closing gender gaps could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, a goal that now seems missed.
  • Beyond workforce numbers, Indian women remain grossly under-represented in leadership and decision-making spaces.
  • From corporate boardrooms to parliamentary committees, their voices are systematically marginalised.
  • Most notably, women bear the burden of unpaid domestic and care work, performing nearly seven times more than men, according to the Time Use Survey.
  • Yet, this critical labour remains invisible in national accounting and grossly underfunded in public policy.

The Demographic Turning Point

• India’s demographic profile is evolving rapidly. While it currently enjoys the benefits of a young workforce, the share of elderly citizens is set to double by 2050, with a significant portion comprising older women, especially widows who face higher dependency.
• At the same time, fertility rates are now below the replacement level, signalling an eventual decline in the working-age population.
• This demographic transition intensifies the urgency of gender inclusion.
• As the dependency ratio rises, the burden on a shrinking workforce will increase, potentially undermining India’s fiscal and economic stability.
• The only sustainable response is to ensure that women, who make up half of the population, are healthy, empowered, and economically active.
• Gender equality is no longer just a matter of human rights. It is a demographic imperative and an economic necessity. 

From Slogans to Systems: The Need for Real Investment

• India does not lack policy frameworks or political ambition.
• What it lacks is real investment and systemic reform. Addressing gender inequality requires a multi-sectoral approach:
  • Public health systems must prioritise women’s preventive and reproductive needs.
  • Care infrastructure must be expanded and integrated into social protection policies.
  • Gender budgeting and time-use data must inform policy design.
• Most importantly, women must be seen not as passive beneficiaries, but as active builders of the economy.
• The Global Gender Gap Report (2025), then, is more than a ranking, it is a warning.
• If India fails to address its gender disparities now, it risks undermining the very gains it has so admirably achieved in other arenas.

Conclusion

• India’s aspirations of becoming a global superpower will remain incomplete if half its population is left behind.
• Gender inequality in health, labour, and care work is not just a social issue, it is a drag on the nation’s potential.
• To reverse this, the country must commit to transformative action that places women at the heart of its economic and demographic planning. The time for slogans has passed; the time for systemic investment and real reform is now.