Taguiwalo: The country has consistently landed in the Top 10

By Paulo Loreto Lim

While speaking during a public forum on gender-based violence at the University of the Philippines-Visayas in Iloilo City last week, former Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Judy Taguiwalo highlighted the Philippines’ performance on the annual Global Gender Gap Report, which is published by the World Economic Forum.

This year, the Philippines ranked 10th overall, 13th in terms of political empowerment, and among the top when it came to educational attainment.

According to the former cabinet official, the Philippines has consistently landed among the Top 10 when it comes to parity between the genders.

Despite coming out among the top, it is a step down as the country ranked sixth overall on last year’s index, which was credited to a drop regarding “wage equality for similar work.”

Incidentally, the Philippines is the only Asian country in Top 10, with the closest Southeast Asian contemporary being Laos, which came in at 64.

The index also noted 42 percent of women are married by the age of 25, while the average age for giving birth to their first child was around 29.

However, the index points out the results are not necessarily indicative of a country’s development status.

“The index is designed to measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in countries rather than the actual levels of the available resources and opportunities in those countries,” they explained. “[It] is constructed to rank countries on their gender gaps not on their development level.”

A trio of Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Norway, and Finland, took the top three positions./PLL, WDJ