Statistics on Discrimination of Women

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A more descriptive post on gender discrimination is here.

Content:

1. Gender equality in general
2. Gender equality at work
3. Gender equality in education
4. Gender equality in mentalities
5. Gender equality in politics

1. Gender equality in general

The “Global Gender Gap Index”, published by the World Economic Forum, ranks countries according to the level of gender-inequality existing in those countries. This ranking is based on 14 indicators covering political representation, access to education, health and economic participation.

All of the world’s countries are affected by gender-based inequality, but some more than others. The Global Gender Gap Index tries to measure the levels of inequality.

These are the categories that are measured and that make up the global index:

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

Here’s a map of country performances:

(source)

Here’s the 2009 ranking:

(source)

And here’s the 2009 map:

(source)

The Global Gender Gap is only one of several measures of gender discrimination. Here are the countries’ performances as perceived by public opinion:

(source)

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2. Gender equality at work

Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work, but even in industrialized countries there is salary discrimination (see the graph below) and there are promotion obstacles for women. In developing countries, this discrimination is even worse.

The same is true for women in the US; they still earn less than men:

(source)

gender wage gap in the US, by age group

(source)

And this is the breakdown by profession (still for the U.S. only):

wage gap by profession

(source)

To view specific professions, use the interactive version of this graph here. Much of the gap in wages today can still be explained by factors such as occupational choice and experience. See here.

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3. Gender equality in education

There is a global gender disparity in primary and secondary education. One way to measure this is to count how many women have secure and paid employment in areas other than agriculture:

(source)

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4. Gender equality in mentalities

(source)

(source)

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5. Gender equality in politics

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 representativity or 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 parliamentarians for example.

However, 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, 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. It’s very unlikely if not impossible that women are systematically less competent than men to serve in parliament, or that the voters sincerely, rationally and objectively believe this to be the case. There must be other, more deeply embedded psychological motives for such a choice, related to the generally inferior position of women in patriarchal societies.

Here are some data:

(source)

(source)

A complete up-to-date data set is here.

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