The GREAT Inititiative - Gender Right & Equality Trust

Gender Imbalance (Facts and Figures)

The list of alarming statistics regarding gender imbalance never fails to shock, and is seemingly endless. Click the links below to see just a small selection of facts and figures.

General »

• Women represent 50% of the world population.
• Out of the 550 million working poor in the world, an estimated 330 million, or 60%, are women.
  (International Labor Organization)
• Gender roles, inequities and power imbalances are not a ‘natural’ result of biological differences, but are determined by the systems and cultures in which we live. This means that we can address and contribute to changing these roles by challenging the status quo and seeking social change.
  (UNICEF)
• Women’s unequal access to financial resources has a negative impact on their well-being and that of their families and communities, and on economic growth and development overall.
  (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: fifteen years later)

Education »

• Women account for nearly two-thirds of the 785 million illiterate adults in the world.
  (Ms. Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser for Gender Issues and Advancement of Women)
• 2 out of 3 countries in the world face gender disparities in primary and secondary education. In some regions like Northern Africa, 66% of the out-of-school children are girls.
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• Providing girls one extra year of education beyond the average boosts eventual wages by 10 to 20%. They also tend to marry later, have fewer, healthier, better-nourished children and are more likely to send their children to schools.
  (What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World)
• 171 millions people could be lifted out of poverty if all students in low-income left school with basic reading skills.
  (UNICEF)

Health »

• A woman in Sierra Leone is 600 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in the UK.
  (WHO report)
• 53% people living with HIV in 2008 were women.
  (UN)
• 1/4 to 1/2 of girls in developing countries become mothers before they turn 18.
  (The Girl Effect)
• Equipping one woman with the proper knowledge and tools determine the size of her family and the spacing of her children, give her birth safely in a health facility and protect her children from getting preventable diseases.
  (ONE INternational)

Violence and armed conflict »

• One out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries. 50 millions of women are ‘missing’ due to neglect or violence.
  (Women Thrive Worldwide).
• 80% of the world’s 35 million refugees and IDPs are women and children.
  (UNFPA)
• Women and girls are targeted as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, punish, disperse and/or forcibly relocate members of a community/ethnic group
  (UNIFEM)
• During the past decade, the UN Security Council has signaled strong support to women’s participation in peace processes and the elimination of sexual violence in armed conflict through Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 and 1889 (2009).
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• An increasing number of countries are developing National Action Plans to better coordinate strategies and activities on women, peace and security. As of June 2010, 24 NAPs are in place, and more are expected to be completed by October 2010.

Peace resolution »

• Since 1992, women represented, on average, fewer than 10% of official negotiating delegations in peace talks.
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• Only 2.4% of signatories to peace agreements are women.
  (Peacewomen – Women Building Peace and Fighting Sexual Violence in Conflict-Affected Areas)
• For sustainable peace to take hold, giving women an equal role in shaping peace is essential for it to be sustainable. Women adopt a more inclusive approach toward security, and address social and economic issues which would otherwise be ignored.
  (UN)
• Because of the central role that women play in their communities as mothers, teachers, nurses and care-givers, they can be effective leaders in pushing for more responsible spending and for policies to improve health and education.
  (ONE INternational)

Power and decision-making »

• Globally, women held 19.1% of seats in single/lower chambers of parliament in May 2010, compared to 11.3% in 1995.
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• Only 28 countries have achieved the 30% target for women in decision-making positions set in the early 1990s.
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• In Northern Africa, Southern Asia and Western Asia, less than one in every ten officials and top managers are women.
  (UN)
• Quotas and other temporary special measures, applied in areas such as electoral systems, and corporate and civil service recruitment processes, have played a significant role in increasing the number of women in public life.
  (UN Entity for Gender Equality)
• Higher numbers of women in parliament and other public office positions generally contribute to stronger attention to women’s issues. Women in public office encourage greater political engagement by ordinary women.
  (UNIFEM)

Economic power »

• Women perform 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the food, but earn 10% of the income and own 1% of the property.
  (UNIFEM)
• Women are a driving force behind Africa’s economy running an estimated 48% of small and medium-sized businesses and growing 80% of the food.
  (ONE INternational)
• Women’s invest 90% of their earnings into the health, education and well-being of their families, compared with 30-40% for men.
  (ONE INternational)
• There is a direct link between increased female labour participation and growth: It is estimated that if women’s paid employment rates were raised to the same level as men’s, America’s GDP would be 9% higher; the euro-zone’s would be 13% higher.
  (UNIFEM)

Food security »

• In many parts of the world, women and girls are responsible for collecting water and firewood. As these resources become scarcer in the face of increasingly erratic rainfall, they must spend more time looking for and collecting them, further reducing the time they have available to engaging in economic activities, or attending school’
  (Amy North, University of London)
• It is estimated that African women and children spend 40 billion hours fetching water every year, equivalent to a year’s labour for the entire workforce of France.
  (UN Millennium Development Project)
• If the average distance to the moon is 394,400 km, South African women together walk the equivalent of a trip to the moon and back 16 times a day to supply their households with water.
  (UNIFEM)
• Reaching women with equal access to these assets is proven to boost production and yields, by up to 22%.
  (ONE INternational)
• Women can feed the world!

Human rights »

• Discrimination against women persists in law and in practice. The effective implementation and enforcement of these laws remains an issue. Many women suffer numerous forms of discrimination and limited access to rights, resources and opportunities.
  (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: fifteen years later)
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women increasingly has been used as a framework for action for the promotion of the human rights of women. States have made progress in carrying out legal reforms, enhancing equality between women and men before the law.
  (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: fifteen years later)

Institutional mechanisms »

• The year 2010 is an important time to reflect on progress, as it marks the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), and the 10th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security.
• Ten years have also passed since the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched, with a series of time-bound targets for advancing development and reducing poverty by 2015 or earlier.
  (UN women)
• 191 countries adopted the Millenium Declaration and agreed to work on Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
  (Global Aid Alliance)