AJITH SIRIWARDANA 
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SL ranked 55th in Global Gender Gap report
Sri Lanka is ranked 55th among 136 countries across the world in terms of gender gap, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2013 released by the World Economic Forum on Friday.
“Sri Lanka significantly worsened from its 2012 position of 39th place. From this region, Sri Lanka dropped furthest, widening its gender gap on the Political Empowerment subindex and falling 8 places to 30th. Sri Lanka falls 16 spots, relative to its performance last year, due to a fall on both the Economic Participation and Opportunity (from 105th to 109th place) and the Political Empowerment (from 22nd to 30th place) sub indexes,” the report stated.
The eighth edition of the report introduced by the Forum in 2006 shows 86 out of 133 countries improved their gender gap since 2012, with the area of political participation seeing the greatest progress.
The report’s index assesses 136 countries, representing more than 93 percent of the world’s population, on how well resources and opportunities are divided among male and female populations.
It measures the size of the gender inequality gap in four areas: economic participation and opportunity-salaries, participation and highly skilled employment; educational attainment—access to basic and higher levels of education; political empowerment—representation in decision-making structures; and Health and survival—life expectancy and sex ratio.
According to the report, India ranked 101st, Bhutan 93rd, Bangladesh 75th, Pakistan 135th, and the Maldives 97th.
The top ten countries include Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Philippines, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark, Switzerland and Nicaragua. Likewise, the US is ranked 23rd, Canada 20th, and China 69th, according to the report.
“Countries will need to start thinking of human capital very differently— including how they integrate women into leadership roles.
This shift in mindset and practice is not a goal for the future, it is an imperative today,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum as quoted in the press release.
The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps.
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