In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that number of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world?s leading economies, and are actually on the decline in many, including the United States.

India?s low overall ranking in the study showed slow progress for women despite women friendly policies, which have been in place for a number of years.

The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU.

It was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation.

In the study, India ranked the lowest overall of the countries ? Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, and the EU ? including low rankings in economic status, access to resources, knowledge economy, and health.

Less than 15 percent of women have access to their own bank account, and females hold less than a third of available administrative and managerial positions.

While India?s enabling policy environment, which has been in place for many years, is very positive, implementation and funding needs to increase substantially before women can equally benefit from the innovation advantage.

Despite efforts made by the countries studied to give women greater access to science and technology education, research showed negative results, particularly in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science.

Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields?less than 30 percent in most countries.

Female enrollments in the bio and health sciences in India are very high, at 80 per cent, but the numbers drop drastically in engineering and physics enrollments to 35 percent.

In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board ? only 12 percent of the S&E workforce in India was female in 2010.

Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.

India does see a high representation of females in management in all sectors at 42%, but less than 5% representation of females on corporate boards.

The data show that women’s parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being higher economic status, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources.