ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been ranked the lowest among 148 countries in the World Economic Forum`s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2025, released on Thursday.

The annual report, the world`s longest-runningindexofgender parity, shows a further deterioration in Pakistan`s performance compared to previous years.

Afghanistan, which is typicallyranked at the bottom of the index due to its gender-biased policies, has not been included in this year`s index at all.

In the sub-index of economic participation and opportunity, Pakistan and India are placed among the bottom five countries.

In the four pillars of the 2025 index, Pakistan ranked 147th in economic participation and opportunity, 137th in educational attainment, 131st in health and survival, and 118th in political empowerment.In the health and survival sub-index, Pakistan is fairly better positioned than India, with a score of 0.959 as compared to India`s 0.954. In the arena of political empowerment, Pakistan`s score was 0.110 better than some regional countries.

Occupying the bottom rank of 148, Pakistan sees its overall parity score decline from the 2024 report, from 57 per cent to 56.7pc. Overall, Pakistan has closed 2.3 of its gender gap since 2006.

However, this year`s results are a second consecutive drop from the economy`s best score of 57.7pc, achieved in 2023.

Parity in economic participation and opportunity declines by 1.3 percentage points. While economic representation indicators have remained unchanged, income disparity in Pakistan has slightly increased since 2024 (.02), as has perceived wage inequality (4 percentage points).

The sole sub-index advance registered by Pakistan in the 2025 edition of the report is educational attainment, which bumps educational parity upwards by 1.5 percentage points to reach 85.1pc.

Part of the shift is driven by an increase in female literacy rates (from 46.5pc to 48.5pc).

However, parity has also risen because male enrolment shares have dropped in tertiary education, increasing the relative balance between men and women but lowering educational reach overall.

South Asia With the lowest economic participation and opportunity score among all regions at40.6pc, South Asia is yet to close two-thirds of the economic gender gap. Economies within the block register high levels of score dispersion in this sub-index, evidenced by the 34.6 points that separate Pakistan (34.7pc) from Bhutan (69.3pc).

Overall, the region has only inched forward by 0.8 percentage points since 2006. However, this number masks what is, in fact, a very heterogeneous economic parity trajectory.

Over time, South Asia has significantly improved parity in economic representation, with increases of 9.1 percentage points for senior officials, managers and legislators, and 17.2 percentage points for professional and technical workers.

Top five Iceland maintains its position as the world`s most genderequal economy for the 16th consecutive year, with 92.6pc of its gender gap closed the only economy to surpass 90pc parity. Finland (87.9pc), Norway (86.3pc), the UK (83.8pc) and New Zealand (82.7pc) round out the top five positions.

All top 10 economies have closed at least 80pc of their gender gaps, the only economies to achieve this milestone.

European nations dominate thetop 10 rankings with eight positions Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden have maintained top 10 status since 2006.

Political empowerment has seen the most improvement overall, with the gap narrowing by nine percentage points since 2006, yet at the current pace, it will still take 162 years to fully close this gap. Economic participation and opportunity have gained 5.6 percentage points over time, with e conomic parity projected to take 135 years ateurrentrates.

`At a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic change, advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal,` said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.

`The evidence is clear.

Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress,` she said.

According to the report, the global gender gap has closed to 68.8pc, marking the strongest annual advancement since the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet full parity remains 123 years away at current rates.