At the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full global gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022.

The report, released on Wednesday, says 68.1 percent of the global gender gap has been closed so far.

Countries such as Iceland (90.8 percent), Finland (86 percent), Norway (84.5 percent), New Zealand (84%), and Sweden (82.2 percent) feature as the top five countries that have made great strides in closing the gender gap. Nepal ranks 96th.

South Asia, however, ranks the lowest, with only 62.3 percent of the gender gap closed as of 2022, indicating that it will require 197 more years for total gender parity in the region.

The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment.

Nepal has a gender parity score of 0.692 in the Global Gender Gap Index.

Under the four dimensions, Nepal’s rankings vary drastically.

While on the basis of ranking, Nepal performs the best under Political Empowerment at 58, it has only achieved a gender parity of 0.247 under the same.

The country ranks 98th in Economic Participation and Opportunity with a parity index of 0.641.

Likewise, it ranks 125th in Educational Attainment (0.916) and 109th (0.965) under Health and Survival.

The report identifies gender gap in the workforce as an emerging crisis, highlighting the gender gaps in labour-market recovery, care work, leadership, political representation, wealth accumulation, lifelong learning and skills prioritisation and stress levels.

“This year’s Global Gender Gap Report findings serve as a tool for leaders to identify areas for individual and collective action,” according to Saadia Zahidi, a Managing Director at the World Economic Forum.