Ten Global Facts about Women*

Taken from the World Bank report cited at the end.

◆◆ Women’s labor force participation has stagnated, in fact decreasing from 57 percent in 1990 to 55 percent in 2012. ◆◆ Women on average earn between 10 and 30 percent less than working men. ◆◆ Women are only half as likely as men to have full-time wage jobs for an employer. ◆◆ In only five of the 114 countries for which data are available have women reached or surpassed gender parity with men in such occupations as legislators, senior officials, and managers; namely, Colombia, Fiji, Jamaica, Lesotho, and the Philippines. ◆◆ Women spend at least twice as much time as men on unpaid domestic work such as caring and housework. ◆◆ A total of 128 countries have at least one sex-based legal differentiation, meaning women and men cannot function in the world of work in the same way; in 54 countries, women face five or more legal differences. ◆◆ Across developing countries, there is a nine percentage point gap between women and men in having an account at a formal financial institution. ◆◆ More than one in three women has experienced either physical or sexual violence by a partner or non-partner sexual violence. ◆◆ In 2010–12, 42 countries reported gender gaps in secondary school enrollment rates exceeding 10 percent. ◆◆ One in three girls in developing countries is married before reaching her 18th birthday. …and some signs of progress ◆◆ Women’s labor force participation in Latin America and the Caribbean rose by 33 percent since 1990. ◆◆ Half of the legal constraints documented in 100 countries in 1960 on access to and control over assets, ability to sign legal documents, and fair treatment under the constitution had been removed by 2010. ◆◆ Seventy-five countries have enacted domestic violence legislation since the adoption of CEDAW in 1979. ◆◆ The global ratio of female to male primary education enrollment increased from 92 percent in 2000 to 97 percent in 2011. ◆◆ The share of people agreeing that men should have the priority over jobs fell from 48 percent in 1999–2004 to 41 percent in 2008–2012 in the 23 developed and developing countries with data. ◆◆ International commitments to gender equality are increasing. The World Bank documents nearly US$31 billion of gender-informed lending in fiscal year 2013, and, in 2011, OECD countries contributed about US$20.5 billion toward gender equality and women’s empowerment projects.

* These facts as well as picture are taken from World Bank's 2014 Women at Work Report. Click here for the whole report.