AI Fuels New Front in Gender Inequality, Experts Warn Against Excluding Women

New Delhi: As India continues to lag in closing the gender gap, experts warn the gap could be wider in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) economy, where women could be largely excluded from decisions, opportunities and benefits that AI creates.

India ranked 131st in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) recently released Global Gender Gap Index 2026. Except for Pakistan, India ranked below all other countries in the neighbourhood -- Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

The WEF estimates that complete global gender parity is still 120 years away, while Southern Asia could take 149 years at its current pace. While it did not give any individual estimate for India, it could be around 149-150 years for the country, as its parity score of 64.5 per cent equals that of South Asia and is below the global average of 69.2 per cent.

Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director at Population Foundation of India, said India has made important commitments to women-led development, but a significant gap remains between policy ambition and lived reality.

Particularly concerning is India's performance in economic participation and opportunity, where it ranks 143rd out of 145 economies, Muttreja told PTI.

"While progress in girls' education is encouraging, these gains are yet to translate into commensurate economic participation, leadership roles and decision-making power. Closing this gap requires, in addition to existing schemes and welfare delivery programmes, substantially greater investments in women's economic independence, safety, childcare, reproductive autonomy and equal opportunities," she added.

Ultimately, the timeline will depend on how effectively we address the structural inequalities that hold women back, Muttreja said, on how many more years it will take for India to reach complete gender parity.

She, however, underlined that India is a union of states at very different stages of human development, and progress towards gender parity will inevitably be uneven.

"Some states are likely to achieve parity much sooner than others," she said.

Dr Seema Bhaskaran, Gender Expert at Transform Rural India (TRI), said India must ensure that women are involved in the design and development of AI, rather than being limited to the roles of beneficiaries or victims of its misuse.

On the gender gap in AI, Silja Baller, Director, Economic Inclusion at the WEF, said women are more highly represented in roles exposed to disruption and less represented in jobs where AI is expected to augment workers' capabilities.

"The growing AI economy currently looks set to reproduce existing patterns of sectoral and occupational segregation, with women underrepresented in core technical roles and concentrated in its lowest-paid supporting positions," she added.

India's progress, as measured by the index, has been slower than the global average progress, which helps explain its position relative to other economies, Baller noted.

Muttreja said India cannot afford a digital transformation in which women provide the labour but remain excluded from the decisions, opportunities and benefits that AI creates.

Asked whether AI is becoming another front for gender inequality, Muttreja said, "Yes, and the risk is that AI could reinforce and deepen existing gender inequalities."

The 2026 Global Gender Gap report said that women account for nearly half of data annotators but only around one-fifth of AI developers and deployment engineers.

"Women are contributing to the AI economy, yet they remain underrepresented in the roles that design, develop and shape its technologies," Muttreja said.

Implications are particularly significant for India.

"As AI enters recruitment, healthcare, education, banking and public service delivery, biased algorithms could reinforce existing discrimination, particularly against women from poorer, rural and marginalised communities," she said.

She called for equipping more girls and women with advanced digital and AI skills, creating pathways for women into higher-paying technology jobs and leadership positions, and ensuring that AI systems used in public services are tested for gender bias and accountability.

"This also means making digital access, affordable training and career opportunities available beyond metropolitan centres," she added.

Bhaskaran said 40-43 per cent of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduates in India are women, but their underrepresentation in AI follows a similar pattern.

"This could lead to the design of algorithms and programmes that are gendered and masculine, leaving little room for progress that addresses women's needs. Women risk missing out on opportunities in the technology sector, the impact of which is being felt rapidly," she added.

Baller, however, sounded more positive for the future.

The AI economy is still being built, and while there is a risk that historical patterns of women's underrepresentation are being replicated, the decisions we make today on how AI is developed, deployed and integrated can give rise to a more gender equal economy, she said.

Muttreja said economic growth alone will not guarantee gender equality.

"It must be accompanied by sustained investments in women's education, workforce participation, care infrastructure, safety and political representation. The question is not simply how long parity will take, but how decisively we act today to accelerate progress," she added.

India's central challenge is that progress in education and health has not translated for women into comparable gains in economic participation, autonomy and decision-making power, she said.

"Deep-rooted social norms, disproportionate unpaid care responsibilities, restrictions on mobility, unequal employment opportunities and gender-based violence continue to constrain women's choices and freedoms," Muttreja said.

Bhaskaran said violence against women remains a major structural barrier, and legal mechanisms must be strengthened.

"If political will is translated into effective policies and programmes, progress towards gender parity can be accelerated," she said.

"Social and cultural diversity calls for location-specific programmes, but this is often overlooked. Schemes are frequently designed centrally and rolled out uniformly across the country, resulting in low uptake," she added.