India Retains 131st Position in Global Gender Gap Index 2026 as Iceland Keeps Top Rank

Key facts

• India retained the 131st rank among 145 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2026, released by the World Economic Forum on September 16, 2026, with only 14 countries ranked below it.
• Iceland, Finland and Norway held the top three positions, with Iceland the only country to have closed more than 90 per cent of its gender gap.
• Globally, 69.2 per cent of the gender gap has been closed, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous year, but full parity remains 120 years away, according to the WEF.
• India's gender parity stood at 64.5 per cent, below the global average; its overall parity has risen 4.3 percentage points since 2006, mainly due to gains in educational attainment.
• India's 2026 subindex scores: Economic Participation and Opportunity 41.2 per cent, Educational Attainment 96.6 per cent, Health and Survival 95.6 per cent, and Political Empowerment 24.5 per cent with a global rank of 67th.
• Chad was the lowest-ranked country, with Iran and Pakistan joining it in the bottom three.
• In its 20th year, the index benchmarked 145 economies across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
• Australia entered the top 10 for the first time; Namibia climbed four places to fourth as the highest-ranked Sub-Saharan African country, followed by the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, Germany and Ireland.
• Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden are the only four economies to have appeared in every top 10 since 2006.