In the inaugural Social Mobility Index report prepared by the Geneva based, World Economic Forum, India has been placed at the 76th position out of the 82 nations that were measured. Denmark has topped the ranking.
This report has been released ahead of the 50th annual meeting of the non-governmental organization, also states that India is amongst the top five nations to gain the most, by improving its ranking on the index.
The objective of this index is in ensuring that societies create equal opportunities for all its members to fulfil their potential, irrespective of the socio-economic conditions.
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According to the report, increasing social mobility by even 10% would boost social cohesion and bring about an addition of 5% to the global economy by 2030.
The report measures nations across five dimensions distributed over 10 pillars- health, education (access, quality and equity), technology, work (opportunities, wages and conditions); protections and institutions (social protection and inclusive institutions) shows that fair wages, social protections and life long learning are the biggest drags on social mobility globally.
Among the world’s large emerging economies, the Russian Federation is the most socially mobile of the BRICS grouping, ranking 39th with a score of 64 points. Next is China, which ranks 45th, followed by Brazil (60th), India (76th) and South Africa (77th).
Only Bangladesh (78) and Pakistan (79) fare worse than India in the neighbourhood.
As far as India is concerned, it is ranked 41st in life long learning and 53rd in working conditions. Areas for improvement include: social protection (76th) and fair wage distribution (79th).
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland are amongst the top 5 performers.
The economies expected to gain the most by improving their ranks include China, US, India, Japan and Germany.