Falling behind the Rest? China and the Gender Gap Index

Abstract

China’s rank falling in the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum has aroused the domestic scholar’s controversy. Based on the data provided by the Global Gender Gap Report, this article will describe the gender inequality in China by comparing its overall index scores and scores in the fields of economic participation and opportunity, education attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment with other countries, and then examining the reasons for China’s falling in rank through the score changes of sub-dimensions and indicators. Analysis of the data suggests that China has not kept up with the rate of improvement in the overall index, and in the four fields, compared to the original 112 countries, the upper-middle income countries, and the Asian and Pacific countries. Over the 13 years covered by the report, China’s score experienced a rapid improvement from 2006 to 2009 and a decline after 2013. China’s high sex ratio at birth, further expansion of gender inequality in active life expectancy, and an enlarged gender gap in secondary education caused China’s lagging overall score and ranking. In addition, the inclusion of measures such as secondary education enrollment, political empowerment, and other indicators also led to the backward ranking of China to some extent.

Study of the Socio-Economic Analysis of Females Role in Eastern part of Indonesia

“…The higher the life expectancy indicates, the higher the chances of survival. High health status can affect development [5].This finding is supported by Chen research [10] , which states that increasing women's life expectancy has an impact on gender empowerment, also finds that women's life expectancy, the trend of increasing life expectancy, is generally influenced by the increasing level of health, namely easier access to health facilities. Increasing life expectancy illustrates reduced health inequalities, this reduction in inequality reflects the government's success in efforts to achieve gender equality in the health sector.…”

“…Education will give women better career opportunities and will be able to enhance women's self-confidence to stimulate women's self-determination. Another supporting study by Charmes [4] and Chen [10] found that the…”

“…Women's education has a positive relationship with women's empowerment [4]. Women's health has a positive impact on women's empowerment [10]. The increase in women's life expectancy is influenced by increasing levels of health, namely easier access to health facilities.…”

A Cross-Country Examination of Internet Penetration and the Economic Participation of Women: The Influence of Social Capital and Gender Equality

“…The Internet can help build social capital through increasing social interaction with one’s personal social circle irrespective of geographical boundaries (Haythornthwaite, 2005; Wellman et al, 2006). The Internet is frequently used by people for social networking, amusement, knowledge and online transactions due to advancements in affordable mobile devices that allow easy access to the Internet (Cheng et al, 2020). Considered to be among the Internet’s most widespread applications are social networking sites (Statista, 2022c).…”

“…The highest possible score is 1 or 100%, denoting full equality for women, and the minimum score is 0, denoting inequality. Many past studies have also used this index to measure gender equality (Barns & Preston, 2010; Chen & He, 2020; Šestić et al, 2020).…”