Statistics on Discrimination of Women

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Content

1. Gender inequality in general
2. Gender inequality at work
2.1. Wage gap
2.2. Occupational gender segregation
2.3. Glass ceiling
2.4. Cultural and legal restrictions to women’s right to work
2.5. Labor force participation
3. Gender inequality in education
4. Gender inequality in mentalities
5. Gender inequality in politics
6. Gender inequality in inheritance and property rights

1. Gender inequality in general

Inequality between the sexes manifests itself in many different areas of life and takes on many different forms:

70 percent of the two billion poor are women; two thirds of illiterate adults are women; employment rates for women are declining after increasing (yes, of course, the world wars are now over). At the same time many women are forced into veils and burqas, burnt for merely looking at men, stoned to death or buried alive for adultery, forced into sex, pregnancy and delivering HIV-infected children because they were raped, but if they were to report it, they would either be raped again, executed, exiled from their village or town or family. (source)

The idea behind the concept of the feminization of poverty is that high poverty rates among women are caused by discriminatory policies, practices and opinions (such as labor market restrictions, lower wages for women, lack of equal education opportunities, substandard healthcare for women etc.).

There are many different systems that try to measure and aggregate all these forms and manifestations of gender inequality and to rank countries accordingly. There’s the Gender-Related Development Index (or G.D.I.), for example. It takes as its starting point the famous Human Development Index based on life expectancy at birth, enrollment in schools, adult literacy and per capita gross domestic product.

There’s also the Gender Empowerment Measure (G.E.M.), which focuses more narrowly on relative levels of political participation and decision-making power, economic participation and earnings.

And then there’s the Gender Equity Index (G.E.I.) that combines elements similar to both the G.D.I. and the G.E.M. It measures education gaps between men and women (such as literacy gaps and gaps in enrollment rates), differences in participation in the economy (workforce participation, income gaps), and empowerment issues (number of women in government etc.).

Finally, the World Economic Forum publishes a Gender Gap Index (G.G.I.) that combines quantitative measures with some qualitative measures based on a survey of 9,000 business leaders in 104 countries. This “Global Gender Gap Index”, like the other measures, rankscountries according to the level of gender-inequality existing in those countries. It is based on 14 indicators covering political representation, access to education, health and economic participation.

These are the categories that are measured by the Global Gender Gap Index:

And this is the 2007 ranking (there are no long historical series so difficult to analyze evolutions):

And the 2009 ranking:

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Here’s a map of country performances:

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All these rankings are by definition somewhat simplistic since they can’t take into account all the multiple dimensions of gender discrimination. Another major shortcoming is that none of the rankings takes into account the impact of informal work, unpaid work, reproductive work and other issues that are critical to understanding gender equality.

It’s also interesting to look at other measures of gender discrimination, such as countries’ performances as perceived by public opinion:

(source)

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2. Gender inequality at work

Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work (art. 23 of the Universal Declaration). However, even in industrialized countries there are large differences in salaries by gender, even within the same occupations. On top of that, there are promotion obstacles for women and women tend to get “sorted” in low-paying professions, sometimes even by the force of law.

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2.1. Wage gap

Let’s first have a look at the wage gap in total:

Here are data for the OECD:

(source)

South Korea has the worst gender pay gap in the world – women earn 38% less than men.

Here’s a map showing some regional differences in the wage gap in the U.S.:

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In the U.S., the median annual income for women working full time is 23 percent lower than for their male counterparts. According to other estimates, women in the US earn only 82.2% of men’s earnings.

Fortunately, the wage gap has been diminishing in some countries:

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In the U.S., among those who are single, child free, under 30 and living in metro areas, women even have higher average earnings than men. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everything will be fine with the passing of time: when these high earning women get older, some disadvantages of being a woman may still kick in.

Some more detailed data for the US showing the closing of the gap, especially among younger people:

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The reasons for the tentative closing of the gap are numerous: better education for women, more women joining the workforce, the entry of women into traditionally male occupations, less pay discrimination (sometimes the result of anti-discrimination legislation), but also, unfortunately, wage stagnation for men, at least in the U.S.:

(source)

Although it’s wrong to blame the wage gap entirely on discrimination, it’s likely that there is some discrimination involved. The phenomenon is probably an indication of an even deeper kind of prejudice.

The discrimination argument is often countered with the claim that much of the gap in wages today can be explained by occupational choice (see here and here). And indeed it’s true that women seem much more likely than men to prefer jobs that involve nurturing and caring – teaching and nursing are the classic examples – and these jobs happen to pay less. However, even if women earn less because they tend to choose less paying jobs, there may still be discrimination: women may be socialized into choosing certain occupations and this socialization may be caused by prejudice. Furthermore, women’s prefered occupations may pay less precisely because they are prefered by women.

Anyway, occupational choice doesn’t explain the whole wage gap. Even within one and the same profession there are wage differences. Look at this breakdown by profession (still for the U.S. only):

(source, to view specific professions, use the interactive version of this graph here)

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Another common reply to the discrimination argument is that wage gaps are due to the fact that many women decide to interrupt their career after child birth. But why should it be women who have to interrupt their career? Discrimination may therefore still play a role (in the form of stereotypical gender roles). And anyway, career interruption as an explanation for the wage gap is a red herring:

U.S. Department of Education data show that a year out of school, despite having earned higher college GPAs in every subject, young women will take home, on average across all professions, just 80 percent of what their male colleagues do. Even at the top end, female M.B.A.s make $4,600 less per year in their first job out of business school… Motherhood has long been the explanation for the persistent pay gap, yet a decade out of college, full-time working women who haven’t had children still make 77 cents on the male dollar. (source)

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2.2. Occupational gender segregation

Even though there is a wage gap within professions, it’s true that the total wage gap is also in part determined by professional choice. Coincidentally or not, “men’s jobs” are generally better paid than “women’s jobs”:

(source, click image to enlarge)

Now, some call this “occupational sex segregation” but that may be too strong a term since there are no longer a lot of legal restrictions on the employment of women, at least not in the U.S. or other developed countries. Women aren’t segregated by law into very specific occupations. Cultural pressures may still exist, however. Women often feel obliged to choose occupations that mix well with family responsibilities because those responsibilities tend to weigh heavier on women. And those occupations tend to be less profitable. Such a sense of obligation is not a sign of gender equality.

Here’s an overview of occupational gender “segregation” in the US:

(source)

It’s also not clear to what extent women – voluntarily or not – choose jobs that are less well paid, and to what extent employers decide that jobs chosen by women merit less pay.

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2.3. Glass ceiling

And, finally, unequal promotion opportunities and the “glass ceiling” also explain, in part, the wage gap:

(source)

Only 13 of the 500 largest corporations in the world have a female Chief Executive Officer. And it’s not just the top level that is a problem:

(source)

The last graph above again shows a pattern of job segregation.

The gender pay gap is therefore the result of a combination of different types of gender discrimination:

• pushing or socializing women into jobs that are less well paid
• paying less for the types of jobs that women tend to choose, with or without socialization
• paying women less than men within the same types of jobs
• giving women less opportunities to climb the professional ladder
• failing to give women and girls the same opportunities to enter some types of jobs (e.g. because of legal employment restrictions, unequal education, child marriage, socialization into certain types of education etc.)

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2.4. Cultural and legal restrictions to women’s right to work

Hence, gender discrimination at work isn’t just a matter of unequal pay. Sorting – or, if you insist, segregation – also plays a role. As does exclusion, both legal and informal. Take a look at this poll:

(source)

More harmful still are legal restrictions of women’s right to work.

(source)

Often, laws prohibiting the employment of women in certain sectors of the economy are defended on the basis of a vague narrative about the need to protect women. Such limitations exist in 48 countries. The human rights consequences are numerous:

• These limitations violate the right to work.
• They limit labor opportunities and hence make women dependent on the income of their husbands. This dependence can be used by husbands to entrench other forms of gender discrimination.
• Labor market restrictions force women into marriages they would otherwise not choose, and they probably encourage child marriage.
• Because women live longer, tend to have smaller saving rates and are not allowed to inherit in certain countries, labor market restrictions can result in poverty in old age.
• Etc.

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2.5. Labor force participation

Labor participation is a problem. In Arab states, only 28 percent of women participate in the workforce. 73% of adult women work in Vietnam. In Pakistan it’s 22%. And yet, women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, and produce 50 percent of the food. In some regions, women provide 70 percent of agricultural labor and produce more than 90 percent of the food.

(source)

Some numbers for the US:

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3. Gender inequality in education

There is a global gender disparity in primary and secondary education. Some of this disparity is expressed in literacy rates:

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4. Gender inequality in mentalities

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5. Gender in equality in politics

Generally, democratic political systems are characterized by higher levels of gender equality:

(source)

However, even in the best democracy, men and women aren’t always treated equally. In a representative democracy, one can reasonably expect to have a parliament that is roughly representative of the population in general: poor people should have their representatives or delegates just like rich people, women just like men, minorities just like majorities. This representativeness isn’t an absolute requirement. One can have a democracy without it. The people, after all, may decide that their views are best represented by an all-male, all-white body of wealthy parliamentarians for example.

It seems statistically unlikely that this would be their decision in each consecutive election in each democratic country. Imbalances in the demographics of parliament that persist over time and space are probably not the result of the choices of voters but of other factors, such as discrimination, prejudice, unequal opportunities etc. If that’s the case, we are dealing with an imperfect democracy because democracy means equal influence and an equal chance to get elected (art. 21 of the Universal Declaration and art. 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

And that is the case. Take the share of women in parliament for instance. In almost every major democracy of the world, election after election, women are a (tiny) minority in parliament. Around the world, almost 20% of national parliamentary seats are now occupied by women, up from 17.2% five years ago. The most equitable parliament in the world at present is Rwanda’s lower house, where women hold nearly 49 per cent of the seats.

It’s very unlikely if not impossible that voters systematically decide that certain men are better parliamentarians. There must be other, more deeply embedded motives for such a choice, related to the generally inferior position of women in patriarchal societies.

Here are some data:

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A complete up-to-date data set is here. And below are some maps showing the percentage of seats in different parliamentary houses that are held by women – darker shades represent a higher share of seats held by women:

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In only 23 countries do women comprise over 30 percent in the lower house of their national parliament.

As a result, about half of the world’s countries currently use some type of electoral quota for their national legislatures. But it’s not just the legislatures that lack gender balance: only 14 women in the world were either Head of State or Head of Government in 2010, and on average, only 1 in 6 cabinet ministers in the world is a woman.

Local government isn’t much better:

(source)

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6. Gender inequality in inheritance and property rights

In many parts of the world, women face legal restrictions of their property and inheritance rights. Apart from the obvious violation of the equal right to private property, there’s the fact that such legal restrictions form part of and serve to entrench a wider web of gender discrimination. Furthermore, they can impact women’s economic security and prosperity, their ability to obtain loans and credit, their privacy rights etc.

(source, click image to enlarge)

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