Pakistan and neighbouring countries on the Gender Inequality Index from UNDP's Human Development Report 2013.
Pakistan ranked 123 on the gender inequality index of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2013 Human Development Report. Pakistan finished better on the gender front than stronger economies such as India (132) and Egypt (126), even though it ranks lower in the overall Human Development Index (HDI).
According to the report, the gender inequality index is a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievements between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market.
Value index
The value index provides an indicator of the depth of participation in global markets. More than four-fifths of these developing countries increased their trade to output ratio between 1990 and 2012.
In the HDI value index, Pakistan has been recognised to have shown “substantial improvement”.
The report states, “among the exceptions in the subgroup that also made substantial improvement in HDI value are Indonesia, Pakistan and Venezuela, three large countries that are considered global players in world markets, exporting or importing from at least 80 economies”.
Multidimensional Poverty
The report reveals that in South Asia, the highest Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) value is in Bangladesh (0.292 with data for 2007), followed by Pakistan (0.264 with data for 2007) and Nepal (0.217 with data for 2011).
The proportion of the population living in multidimensional poverty is 58% in Bangladesh, 49% in Pakistan and 44% in Nepal, and the intensity of deprivation is 50% in Bangladesh, 53% in Pakistan and 49% in Nepal.
When compared to Pakistan a larger proportion of the population lives in multidimensional poverty in Bangladesh. However the intensity of deprivation is higher in Pakistan.
Overall rank
Overall, Pakistan ranked a low 146 out of the 185 countries on the HDI.
Norway ranked highest on the HDI at number one, while Niger ranked lowest.
Overall rank in South Asia
| Iran | 76 |
| Sri Lanka | 92 |
| Maldives | 104 |
| India | 136 |
| Bhutan | 140 |
| Bangladesh | 146 |
| Pakistan | 146 |
| Nepal | 157 |
| Afghanistan | 175 |
Additional points
"In South Asia, 65% of respondents indicated satisfaction with health
care quality, with Pakistan at 41% and Sri Lanka at 83%.
"Countries that start at a similar level—such as India and Pakistan, Chile and Venezuela, Malaysia and the Philippines, or Liberia and Senegal—have ended up with different outcomes. As the 2010 Human Development Report argued, if countries with similar starting points go on divergent development paths, but average global achievements have not changed, we can infer that it is national forces policies, institutions, social context and idiosyncratic shocks that drive national development outcomes. No country remains a prisoner of history for long if it wants to break out."
Read the full report here.
COMMENTS (53)
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ironically we indians believe in 'nari-shakti'... also there r multiple goddesses worshipped in india...i wonder wat's the point in worshipping these female deities wen the indian men cannot respect the women actually existing in their lives...
@raj Do you guys have considerable number of toilets there ?
@Malatesh: Hey do you live in India or some place abroad. U must have stuided abroad (Just assuming ).
The headline shows the mentality..The only yardstick you have is India..Its laughable
Good article, but it was really the comments section that made my day.
The vast majority of answers, as expected, has come from frustrated Hindustanis. The responses can be largely bracketed as follows:
1) It was a Pakistani who invented the index (?!) so no wonder it is biased
2) It is only Pakistanis who are obsessed with comparisons - we Hindustanis are not bothered with such petty rivalries (even though we have all decided to post a comment to show our anger and insecurity)
3) There are many other signs of development which show that we are the best in the world (presumably these don't include sanitation data, global hunger indices, malnourishment statistics or male/female ratio discrepancies, since Hindustan dwindles in the cesspool of the world for all these comparisons as well)
As for the Pakistani comments, I have to agree with most - firstly, it is an embarrassment that we compare ourselves to a country which still rigorously practices caste discrimination, "satti" and female infanticide to name but a few primitive social trends. Secondly, disregarding Hindustan from the equation, we are far, far away from coming even close to Quaid-e-Azam's dream - there are simply too many evils being practised in our country for me to go into here. However satisfying it is to see Hindustanis get yet another wake-up slap in the face like this, the real issue is that we have a far higher goal to work towards, and the majority of the work is still in front of us.
Praying for all Pakistanis,
Hasan
Pakistan is not competing with India - India is trying to compete with us in every way. Indian obsession with Pakistan!!!!!!
@MKAIND:
Incorrect.
"Regardless of how well India perform – half of the population or more will still live under poverty."
Read this:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/indias-poverty-will-fall-from-51-to-22-by-2015-un-report/articleshow/9152967.cms
India's poverty is expected to halve from 51% to 22% by 2015.
Check how Pakistan's poverty rate is already 43%.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/181361/economic-survey-2010-11-has-the-real-poverty-rate-hit-43/
Only if you had read my comment in full, you didn't have to face this kind of embarrassment.
@Brucelee Force: Regardless of how well India perform - half of the population or more will still live under poverty. The economical progression is not for everyone in India...
This is a small portion of a larger report. If ET had to give the impression Pakistan IS indeed better than India, it shouldn't have provided the link for the report. Not such a smart move.
Here is from the report about India:
1) "India’s economic performance has also been impressive, averaging nearly 5% income growth a year over 1990–2012."
2) "India increased central government spending on social services and rural devel- opment from 13.4% in 2006–2007 to 18.5% in 2011–2012.21 And social services as a pro- portion of total expenditure rose from 21.6% in 2006–2007 to 24.1% in 2009–2010 and to 25% in 2011–2012."
3) "Following the reforms of the 1990s, these investments paid off when India was unexpectedly able to capitalize on its stock of skilled workers in emergent information technolog y–enabled indus- tries, which by 2011–2012 were generating $70 billion in export earnings. Another industry built during the inward-looking years is pharmaceuticals. India granted patents only to processes, not to products, which encouraged firms to reverse engi- neer and become world leaders in generic drugs.24 Similar tales of capacity building can be told for India’s automobile, chemi- cal and service industries, now vigorously tapping into world markets."
4) "By 2020, according to projections devel- oped for this Report, the combined economic output of three leading developing countries alone—Brazil, China and India—will surpass the aggregate production of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States."
I don't think Pakistan's has not grown at all. At 1990 Pakistan was way ahead of India in almost every index. After just 2 decades of rapid growth, the situation has reversed. India leads Pakistan in most counts. Now, Pakistani newpspapers selectively quote from report to claim that Pakistan is ahead in this or that.
When you look at the larger picture India is growing phenomenally, while Pakistan has been regressing.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/181361/economic-survey-2010-11-has-the-real-poverty-rate-hit-43/
Pakistan poverty has ACTUALLY INCREASED to 43%!!
While at the same time India's poverty has halved.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/indias-poverty-will-fall-from-51-to-22-by-2015-un-report/articleshow/9152967.cms
Excellent. This is the kind of things Pakistan should be competing agaisnt with India although 136/146 is hardly something to be proud of.
"@IndianDude:Excellent! All the muslim kashmeres should cross the border and move to the promised land of pure!" Indians you must have to leave Kashmir and make Kashmiri a pure territory because you are making impure Kashmir by the presence of brutal,cruel,barbarians and wild beasts 600,000 Indian troops in Kashmir........
@Omar: How is the index compiled? It seems you have not read articles published in this paper about the plight of women written by men and women writers of Pakistani origin. So where is gender equality? Do not go by these reports see the reality on ground.
The authuor is simply Ha Ha Ha.
@Indian cheapraa: dream on - you will increase to 3 billion population but equality will never come because gender equality comes with mind set not by just mare production of more girls ....
Alas. Not a single comment lamenting the poor standards and status of education in both countries. That is the root cause and reason for the poor show on all other parameters. And we are shooting at each other and arguing whose gun is more shiny and oiled .without real purpose. What a shame on both of us.
Yes, This news might be true . Of course when you are the 2nd most populous country , this is very much possible . But equation will always turns towards us . If you have 200 million population , we have 200 million plus middle class progressive society .If we continue to grow at this rate , we will make this trend reverse . These people should understand that when you have a population of 200 million , we also contain 200 million Muslims , who are generally poor and illiterate and backward and need to be lifted up by special education . It is sufficient for us if we produce 10 million scientists out of 1000 million population . I can see the change in mindset of whole country now .If we continue with this rate in all aspects , then we will be among top 3 nations in the world , yes collectively.....
I don't see much difference in that number game. We are equally pathetic.
@Abdullah khan: Not @AMit but thought I would reply. TV of any country is often not a good representation of ordinary people. People in NC don't live like characters of Friends or Sex in the City.
That does not amount to hypocrisy. Having said that, the problems in India relate to female foeticide, early marriage of women and high anemia. These are legitimate issues and must be fixed. But the social issues you were referring to are indeed true about Indian women. If you come to Mumbai you will find women dressed in everthing from a burkha to a hijab, to a salwar kameez to a saree to jeans to mini skirt. Except for their families, no one cares how the women dress. Similarly throughout India you will find unescorted women freely move about including driving cars/ scoters/ mopeds/ cycles according to what they can afford and no one finds this unusual. WOmen working in offices is also quite common. So definitely these freedoms are available in India. Also for the younger generation there is practically no gap in literacy rate of men and women. Most of the current illiterate population are the much older women - specially n villages. I hope this gives you the information you were looking for.
@nj @khaled thanks for enlightening me!
HAHA Indian BJP minister should take action now or never. Now he has a chance when he is in the government. Last I was seeing a program where Amir Khan tells that many women is been killed by their husbands and another story about a father kills his daugther because he wants a boy and the third story tells about a leader of Supreme Court who was attending a case where a father wants to kill her women unborn child during the case he asked what is wrong by make abortion if this father doesn't wants a girl child? Whole India was shocked. Comparing our Chief Justices and India's then I can conclude that our is more better while making decisions. He is not corrupt as Indian' SC is. Nobody talks about the opression women face in India nor do US/Europe. They just like to point finger against muslims.
I agree.. India needs to work on this matter. we understand that..
@Yasir Mehmood: and indian economist too.........:)
yes it was invented by mehbub ul haq. A pakistani. he was influenced by an indian economist amartya sen. they remained close friends all their lives. hdi was invented by mehbub, and followed by amartya. and its funny to see how indians and pakistanis are competing over their pathetic scores while the invention came from a very close friendship. sad.
Surprisingly hdi was invented by a pakistani economist.
Excellent! All the muslim kashmeres should cross the border and move to the promised land of pure!
@Blithe: If you can Google the Table 14 of the report, you will find you are providing fudged figures for India.
Sex Ration for India is 1.08 while for Pakistan is 1.05. The difference can be attributed to the reduction of male population in Jehadi activites, such as suicide bombings.
The gender inequality for Pakistan looks better for two skewed reasons:
Percentage of female elected representatives in Parliament for Pakistan is 21% while for India is 11%.
The figure for teenager fertility rates for India is 75, Bangladesh is 70 while for Pakistan it is astonishingly 28 which is almost equal to USA and many highly developed country. Not many will believe the figure unless there is a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of data.
I have a feeling that the teenage fertility figures for Pakistan are not correct. Pakistan is famous for fudging the figures to the UN to look good in the eyes of the world, for instance, Pakistan has not released the official data showing percentage of poverty to the UN since 2006 becasue it was noticed that there was a huge rise in poverty in 2006-07 figures compared to Musharraff's fudged figures.
Rest all figures are better for India compared to Pakistan, though India is considered by the UN as medium HDI growth country while Pakistan as LOW HDI growth country.
@Blithe: india's sex ratio is 106 boys for every 100 girls........china and bhutan are worse......u r just better..............kam se fact toh math badlo bhai!!!!!! :)
@ABS: Dear my intention was nt to hurt u.... It was for omer i forgot to mentioned him
@farigh singh: population and poverty of india is also very high....
well, our per capita GDP is much higher. Means India is richer than Pakistan. Period.
@amit:
PLEASE READ ; According to the report, the gender inequality index is a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievements between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market.
India should not be even on the list
@Omar: We are here. The troubling things is not that some list ranked us lower than Pakistan. The troubling thing for us is that there are some genuine issues that are seriously problematic such as female foeticide, young age of marriage and child bearing, high degree of anemia in women etc. India needs to fix these issues to make things right for its women not to move past Pakistan.
You too should be worrying about your women. For example the women's literacy rate, gender gap between men and female in literacy, are much worse in Pakistan than India. When it comes to school going kids these disparities are even more stark. Total fertility rate, maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate - all issues that greatly impact women are beter in India than Pakistan. Women in India have much greater mobility- even in villages, greter labour participation rate and greater flexibility in how they can choose to dres.
Violence against women - despite the Delhi rape case being so much in the news is managed beter in India with much higher conviction rates for rapes, laws on domestic violence which your parliamentarians did not even allow passing, are also areas Pakistan shuld focus on. Not grounds for complacency for India anyway because there is a lot of work that needs to happen in India in areas of changing culture, improving culture and improving laws to address women's violence.
This issue isn't India vs. Pakistan. It is an issue of empowering women. India has to do its part for its women and I hope Pakistan does the same to.
Is this some subject worthy enough to compare and reflect. Pak is doing a good job by having a bigger X ratio than India. Ind is doing a good job by educating and empowering its women better than Pak. I dont understand why each and every thing Pak does is compared to India and vice versa. i personally feel ( besides the point ) that its better you snuff out a life at the time of birth rather than raising an unwanted child and letting her lead a looong life full of misery .
@Raj786:
Pakis still like to smile all the time after all the problems and troubles our step-brothers (Indians) create for us all the time! :-)
@Raj786: Directly proportional to the number of comments Indians make on Pakistani websites. Your frustration make us smile. And lately they have been plenty.
Afganistan is much better than India and Pakistan according to this report.
Should Pakistan gloat because it is 123/186 for gender inequality compared to India's 132/186? or Should India gloat because it is 136/186 for human development compared to Pakistan's 146/186? . Rather than try to improve, this article doesn't miss to use this opportunity to showcase why one country is better than the other.
@Omar: "Now where are the Indian trolls?"
Here is what this troll thinks: Shame on India and shame on Pakistan.
The day pakistan stops comparing with India may we see quick progress.Main thing is where Pakistan stands on the list and its very discouraging.Why dont they comprare basic human rights comparison with India at least given by their respective constitutions.Pakistan stays no where near India which promises equall rights for her citizens.
India has a long way to go in gender equality.
However, the definition of gender equality is different in India than in the west. This means, we need to change the mindset to change the very definition of gender equality in India.
After how many days a paki smiles?
Please compare Pakistan to some country better than us, otherwise the standard of nothing will never improve. India is not the benchmark for anything.
@Omar: @Blithe: lol they are talking about sex ratio not women freedom index .pakistan women are way behind than indian women in litteracy rate ,women freedom index ,jobs and mortality rate .
There is no different in 136 and 146.
yay !!!!
Ha, at last some relief !!!, you are few points better than India.
Saying that Pakistan fares better or worse than India in some index is ridiculous. Is India the benchmark we need to meet? If you want to compare yourself to anyone then compare with the best.
We shouldn't benchmark against India .
India is an outlier which still has a huge problem with selective abortion . For God's sake , they have 112 boys vs 100 girl sex ratio in the world - this is like the worst in the world .
Pskistan has 105 vs 100, which is the same as UK.