Status of Women
Status of Women
UN Department of Public Information
Document: DPI/1862/Rev.2 -- May 1997
Status
of Women
Women have not achieved equality with
men in any country.
Of the world's 1.3 billion
poor people, it is estimated that nearly 70 per cent are
women.
Between 75 and 80 per cent of the
world's 27 million refugees are women and children.
Women's life expectancy, educational attainment
and income are highest in Sweden, Canada, Norway, USA and
Finland.
The Fourth World Conference on Women,
held in Beijing, China from 4-15 September 1995, resulted in
agreement by 189 delegations on a five-year plan to enhance
the social, economic and political empowerment of women,
improve their health, advance their education and promote
their reproductive rights.
Over 100 countries
have announced new initiatives to further the advancement of
women as a result of the Beijing Women's Conference.
The 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women, often described
as a Bill of Rights for Women, has now been ratified by 160
countries.
Political Participation
The first
country to grant women the right to vote was New Zealand in
1893.
Only 28 women have been elected heads of
state or government in this century.
Women hold
11.7 per cent of the seats in the world's parliaments.
In early 1995, Sweden formed the world's first
cabinet to have equal numbers of men and women.
Of the 185 highest-ranking diplomats to the United Nations,
seven are women.
The percentage of female
cabinet ministers worldwide has risen from 3.4 in 1987 to
6.8 per cent in 1996.
Women and Education
Of
the world's nearly one billion illiterate adults, two-thirds
are women.
Two-thirds of the 130 million
children worldwide who are not in school are girls.
During the past two decades the combined
primary and secondary enrollment ratio for girls in
developing countries increased from 38 per cent to 78 per
cent.
Women and Labour
The majority of women
earn on average about three-fourths of the pay of males for
the same work, outside of the agricultural sector, in both
developed and developing countries.
In most
countries, women work approximately twice the unpaid time
men do.
Women make up 31 per cent of the
official labour force in developing countries and 46.7 per
cent worldwide.
Rural women produce more than 55
per cent of all food grown in developing countries.
The value of women's unpaid housework and
community work is estimated at between 10-35 per cent of GDP
worldwide, amounting to $11 trillion in 1993.
Women hold 35.5 per cent of professional posts in the United
Nations Secretariat including 18.5 per cent in senior
management.
By the year 2000, there will be as
many women employees as men in many industrialized nations.
Women and Population
Women outlive men in
almost every country.
There are slightly fewer
women than men in the world -- 98.6 women for every 100 men.
Out-of-marriage births have increased more than
50 per cent in the last 20 years in developed countries.
One in every four households in the world is
now headed by a woman.
The life expectancy of
women has gone up. In 1992, the average woman lived to be
62.9 years in developing countries compared to 53.7 years in
1970. In industrialized countries, women's average life
expectancy in 1992 was 79.4 years, up from 74.2 in
1970.
By 2025, the proportion of women aged 60 or older will almost double in East and South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North Africa.
Women and
Health
Women are becoming increasingly affected
by HIV. Today about 42 per cent of estimated cases are
women, and the number of infected women is expected to reach
15 million by the year 2000.
An estimated 20
million unsafe abortions are performed worldwide every year,
resulting in the deaths of 70,000 women.
Approximately 585,000 women die every year, over 1,600 every
day, from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In
sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 13 women will die from pregnancy or
childbirth related causes, compared to 1 in 3,300 women in
the United States.
Globally, 43 per cent of all
women and 51 per cent of pregnant women suffer from
iron-deficiency anemia.
Women and Violence
Each year an estimated two million girls suffer the practice
of female genital mutilation.
Worldwide, 20 to
50 per cent of women experience some degree of domestic
violence during marriage.
The primary victims
of today's wars are civilian women and their children, not
soldiers.
The use of rape as a weapon of war
has become more evident. In Rwanda from April 1994 to April
1995, estimates of the number of women and girls raped range
from 15,700 to over 250,000.
Rapes in the
former Yugoslavia and Rwanda are being investigated with a
view to prosecution by International Tribunals established
by the United Nations.
Statistics are culled from a
variety of sources and are valid as of May 1997.
For more
information, contact:
UN Department of Public
Information, Room S-1040, United Nations, New York, NY 10017
tel.:(212) 963-3771, fax: (212) 963-1186, Email:
vasic@un.org
Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information -- DPI/1862/Rev.2 -- May 1997
ENDS