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IndiaEconomic Visibility

Shape. The strongest dimension is D5 Statistical and political voice (0.596); the weakest is D4 Institutional visibility (0.331). A Shapley attribution of the 52.5-point gap to full parity assigns the largest share, 14.3 points (27%), to D3 Enterprise and legal rights.

47.5GEVI / 100 · Hidden band

Evidence. Of 13 inputs, 13 are grade A, 0 are grade B and 0 are grade C (imputed), a blind-spot ratio of 0.00. Every input is measured.

AuthorSujoy Maitra

0009-0009-1319-3706

PaperMCWP-2026-60

Publication Date29 Sept 2026

SCENARIO BRANCHESINDIA

S6 ENTERPRISE SCENARIO +7.6 POINTS

GEVI score47.5

Rank19 / 19

Blind-spot ratio0.00

Reported research measures. Animation reveals the graphic; it does not represent change over time.

Abstract

Result. India scores 47.5 out of 100 on the Gender Economic Visibility Index, in the Hidden band. The 90% uncertainty interval from 10,000 joint Monte Carlo draws is 44.7 to 50.2 (median 47.5). Its point rank is 19 of 19, and across the same draws the rank has a median of 19 with a 5th to 95th percentile range of 19 to 19.

Evidence. Of 13 inputs, 13 are grade A, 0 are grade B and 0 are grade C (imputed), a blind-spot ratio of 0.00. Every input is measured.

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Inputs and parity calculations

Inputs and parity scores

ID table
ID	Indicator	Raw	Score	Grade	SD
I1	Labour force participation	women 32.4, men 77.6 (2025)	0.4175	A	0.02
I2	Youth NEET	women 39.0, men 10.3 (2024)	0.2641	A	0.02
I3	Youth unemployment	women 17.5, men 15.5 (2025)	0.8857	A	0.02
I4	Non-vulnerable employment	women 78.2, men 69.0 (2025)	0.7032	A	0.02
I5	Senior and middle management	11.9% (2024)	0.2380	A	0.02
I6	Wage and salaried employment	women 21.2, men 26.7 (2025)	0.7940	A	0.02
I7	Firm ownership	3.88% (2022)	0.0776	A	0.02
I8	WBL legal frameworks	57.9 (2025)	0.5790	A	0.02
I9	WBL enforcement	43 (2026)	0.4300	A	0.02
I10	WBL supportive frameworks	55 (2026)	0.5500	A	0.02
I11	Women ministers	5.56% (2024)	0.1112	A	0.02
I12	Women MPs	13.8% (2026)	0.2760	A	0.02
I13	Data availability	11 of 12 rows	0.9167	A	0.02

The labour, management, enterprise and legal inputs (I1 to I11) come from the World Bank Gender Data Landscape for this economy (April 2026 edition, including Women, Business and the Law 2026). The parliamentary share (I12) comes from the Inter-Parliamentary Union monthly ranking as of 1 August 2026.

Step 1: Indicator calculations

GEVI has three layers: 13 indicators, 5 dimensions and one composite. Each indicator is converted to a parity score, each dimension is the simple mean of its indicators, and the composite is a weighted geometric mean of the dimensions. Three principles govern the design: parity scores avoid arbitrary goalposts; substitutability is allowed within a dimension but not across dimensions; and every input carries an evidence grade that sets its uncertainty.

ID table
ID	Calculation	Score
I1	min(32.4 / 77.6, 1) = 0.418	0.418
I2	min(10.3 / 39.0, 1) = 0.264	0.264
I3	min(15.5 / 17.5, 1) = 0.886	0.886
I4	min((100 - 78.2) / (100 - 69.0), 1) = min(21.8 / 31.0, 1) = 0.703	0.703
I5	min(11.9 / 50, 1) = 0.238	0.238
I6	min(21.2 / 26.7, 1) = 0.794	0.794
I7	min(3.88 / 50, 1) = 0.078	0.078
I8	57.9 / 100 = 0.579	0.579
I9	43 / 100 = 0.430	0.430
I10	55 / 100 = 0.550	0.550
I11	min(5.56 / 50, 1) = 0.111	0.111
I12	min(13.8 / 50, 1) = 0.276	0.276
I13	11 / 12 = 0.917	0.917

Step 2: Dimension scores

Dim table
Dim	Calculation	Score
D1	0.418 + 0.264 + 0.886 = 1.567; / 3	0.5224
D2	0.703 + 0.238 + 0.794 = 1.735; / 3	0.5784
D3	0.078 + 0.579 + 0.430 = 1.087; / 3	0.3622
D4	0.550 + 0.111 = 0.661; / 2	0.3306
D5	0.276 + 0.917 = 1.193; / 2	0.5963

The base weights (0.25, 0.20, 0.20, 0.15, 0.20) reflect the emphasis on labour participation and on statistical voice. They are a prior, not an estimate, which is why the paper tests seven weighting schemes, including data-driven entropy and principal-component weights computed from the 15-economy dimension matrix.

Aggregation, uncertainty and sensitivity

Step 3: Aggregation trace

Term table
Term	Calculation	Value
D1	0.5224 ^ 0.25	0.85018
D2	0.5784 ^ 0.20	0.89629
D3	0.3622 ^ 0.20	0.81619
D4	0.3306 ^ 0.15	0.84702
D5	0.5963 ^ 0.20	0.90177
Product	0.8502 x 0.8963 x 0.8162 x 0.8470 x 0.9018	0.47505
GEVI	100 x product	47.51

Check in logs: sum of w ln D = -0.74433; exp = 0.47505; times 100 = 47.51.

Step 4: Uncertainty and sensitivity

For each of 10,000 draws the model samples all 13 indicator scores from truncated normal distributions and the five dimension weights from a Dirichlet distribution, then recomputes the index. The same seed (2026) is used for every economy, which means all economies share the same weight draws. That is intentional: weight uncertainty is common to the whole series, so rank comparisons are made under identical weights in each draw.

Each input has a grade with a standard deviation applied to its score: A = 0.02, B = 0.06, C = 0.12. The standard deviations are judgemental settings that express how much a reader should trust a value; they are not estimated from replications. Section 7.5 shows the effect of changing the settings that matter most.

Robustness. Across seven weighting schemes the rank runs from 19 to 19; across ten alternative specifications (benchmark, parity cap and imputation rule) it runs from 19 to 19. The score changes by at most 2.2 points across those specifications.

p1 table
p1	p5	p10	p25	p50	p75	p90	p95	p99	Mean	SD
43.51	44.74	45.31	46.37	47.51	48.65	49.64	50.20	51.31	47.50	1.68

Weight uncertainty explains 70.7% of the output variance; the grade C (imputed) inputs explain 0.0%. Weights and measured inputs, not imputation, drive the spread.

Gaps, scenarios and priorities

Step 5: Where the gap is

The gap to full parity is 52.5 points. Because the geometric mean is non-additive, the contribution of one dimension depends on the state of the others. Shapley values average each dimension’s marginal contribution over all 5! orderings of the dimensions, so they sum exactly to the gap. v(S) is the GEVI obtained when the dimensions in S are set to 1.

Dim table
Dim	Shapley points	Share of gap	Shortfall of score (x100)
D3	14.29	27.2%	63.8
D4	11.70	22.3%	66.9
D1	11.44	21.8%	47.8
D2	7.75	14.8%	42.2
D5	7.32	13.9%	40.4

Scenario simulation and pathways

Levers. The largest single-lever scenario among S1 to S6 is "S6 Enterprise: management and firm ownership to 0.75", worth +7.6 points. A greedy pathway of +0.10 steps on measured indicators reaches the next threshold, 50 points, after 3 steps; at an illustrative improvement of 0.02 a year on every measured indicator it takes 2 years.

Scenario table
Scenario	GEVI	Gain	p5	Median	p95
S1 Data coverage to 9 of 12 rows	47.5	+0.0	44.8	47.5	50.1
S2 Institutions: supportive frameworks 50%, ministers 15%	49.3	+1.8	47.0	49.4	51.6
S3 Legal: legal and enforcement scores +0.10	49.1	+1.6	46.6	49.1	51.5
S4 Labour access: halve the gap to parity	53.6	+6.1	49.5	53.6	57.8
S5 Politics: women 15% of parliament	47.7	+0.2	44.9	47.7	50.4
S6 Enterprise: management and firm ownership to 0.75	55.1	+7.6	51.8	55.1	58.2
S7 Combined S1 to S6	65.9	+18.3	62.4	65.9	69.1
S8 Series best-in-class on every measured indicator	96.0	+48.5	94.1	95.0	95.9

The pathway adds 0.10 to one measured indicator at a time, always choosing the step that raises GEVI most, until the composite reaches the next threshold above the current score (50, 65, 80, 90 or 95) or no measured indicator can rise further. It is an ordering of priorities, not a forecast.

Step table
Step	ID	Indicator	Score change	GEVI after
1	I10	WBL supportive frameworks	0.55 to 0.65	48.5
2	I10	WBL supportive frameworks	0.65 to 0.75	49.4
3	I7	Firm ownership	0.08 to 0.18	50.3

Priorities

I7 Firm ownership. Record owner sex on business registrations and refresh the enterprise survey.

I11 Women ministers. Publish an annual appointments series by sex for ministerial and board posts.

I5 Senior and middle management. Publish women’s share of senior and middle management from payroll or company records with a common definition.

Restore a fiscal indicator. Add a sex field to wage-tax and taxpayer records and publish an annual gender tax profile, so that D4 can include a direct measure of visibility in the tax system.

Practical use and data strategy

How to use this data

Data product table
Data product	Primary user	Decision it informs	Cadence
Firm ownership by owner sex from the business register	Company registry, revenue authority, small-business agency	Whether women-owned firms use incentives at the same rate	Annual
Ministerial and board appointments by sex	Cabinet office, public service commission	A measured record of decision-making representation	Annual
Management share by sex from employer returns	Revenue authority, company registry, labour ministry	Where women are missing from senior roles	Annual
Sex-disaggregated taxpayer and wage-tax statistics	Revenue authority, treasury	Who is in the formal tax base and who receives refunds and credits	Annual

India’s use case is to turn parity gaps into named data products with named owners, so that each year’s re-run of the index shows which product moved which indicator.

Data strategy

Data product table
Data product	Owner	Indicators	Effect
Sex field on wage-tax returns and taxpayer registrations	Revenue authority	Adds a fiscal indicator (I14, proposed)	Restores the fiscal indicator the index was designed to have
Keep the core 12-row table current and add a fiscal (taxpayer) row	National statistics office and revenue authority	I13 and a proposed I14	Coverage is already 11 of 12; the gain is a new fiscal indicator, not more rows

Scope and limitations

Weights are a prior. The weights express a view, not an estimate. Chapter 7 shows their effect, but no data can identify the right weights.

Uncertainty settings are judgemental. The standard deviations 0.02, 0.06 and 0.12 are settings, not measurements. If they were larger the intervals would widen.

Source heterogeneity. Inputs come from different years and sources; older values carry a wider standard deviation, but a level shift caused by definitions is not modelled.

No causal claim. The scenarios show what the index would do if an indicator changed. They do not show that a policy would change the indicator.

Fiscal indicator absent. No sex-disaggregated taxpayer statistic was found, so the index does not yet measure visibility in the tax system directly.