Gender parity

About 60% of countries have achieved gender parity in the enrollment rates of boys and girls between the ages of five and eighteen.[10] The regions of the Middle East/North Africa, Eastern/Southern, and South Asia score lowest in this area, with far fewer girls enrolling in elementary and high school than boys.[11]

According to data from the World Bank, as of 2013 more women than men were enrolled in institutions of tertiary education globally.[12] Africa was the only continent where more men than women were found to be enrolled but this is with only of 25 of 54 countries reporting.[13] Mexico, Pakistan, Switzerland, and Greece have gender parity in tertiary education enrollment.[12]

In the United States, the average enrollment rate of female students has steadily increased over the past 30 years, from 63% up to 71%, while the average enrollment rate of male students has remained steady at 61%.[14]

Gender parity in graduation rates from colleges and universities varies widely from region to region and a global average cannot be assessed at this time due to lack of data. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) does aggregate this data and across its 37 member countries more women hold tertiary degrees than do men. For the OECD countries, across the 25-34 age group, 39% of men and 51% of women hold tertiary degrees for a gender parity score of 1.3.[15] Compare this to the US tertiary degree attainment gender parity score of 1.1, with 63% of female students and 57% for male students completing their degrees.[16]

Women are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This trend can be seen globally although the variations in terminology that exist make it impossible to make precise comparisons.[25] Jobs in STEM tend to be among the highest paying and because women are underrepresented in these fields, the average wage for men and women is affected resulting in a lower overall gender parity score.

On average, female workers in a given field are given lower pay than their male counterparts, averaging 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.[26] Movement towards gender parity in pay has stagnated in lower-income countries since 2010 although it saw a modest increase from 2018 to 2019. High-income countries have historically seen lower gender parity in pay as compared to that of lower-income countries. Over the past twenty years, high-income have seen a steady progression towards gender parity and now match the average for lower-income countries.[27]

The gender pay gap is calculated in two ways: the adjusted pay gap takes into account differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, level of education, and particular job, while the non-adjusted pay gap does not take any of these factors into its calculations and therefore demonstrates greater stratification.

Race, age, marital status, parenthood status, and other factors also play important compounding roles in pay inequality between men and women. Because women are less well represented in STEM fields which are experiencing the most job and wage growth, the global average wage parity statistics are further skewed in favor of men.[27]

The UN Women Facts and Figures on Women’s Leadership and Political Participation, states that there are only 21 countries in which women serve as Heads of State or Government and 119 countries have never had a woman leader.[28] Should we continue on this current trajectory, gender parity in the highest sectors of power will not be reached for another 130 years [28]

As of 2021, there are 10 countries who have a woman as Head of State, and 13 countries who have a woman as Head of Government.[28] Women make up only 21 percent of government ministers and only 14 countries have achieved 50 per cent or more women in cabinets.[28] With an annual increase of just 0.52 percentage points, gender parity in ministerial positions will not be achieved before 2077.[28] There is tremendous regional variation in gender parity: Nordic countries score 0.73; the Americas score 0.44; Europe excluding Nordic countries scores 0.37; sub-Saharan Africa scores 0.31; Asia scores 0.24; Arab states score 0.23; the Pacific scores 0.19.[29]

As of 2021, women make up 25 percent of all national parliamentarians, which is up 16 percent from 11 percent in 1995.[28] There are only 4 countries which have achieved 50 per cent gender parity in single or lower houses; Rwanda, Cuba, Bolivia and the United Arab Emirates.[28]

There are 19 countries that have reached or surpassed the 40 per cent goal and two-thirds of those countries have implemented gender quotas to do so.[28]

The purpose of implementing gender quotas, is to recruit women into political positions and to ensure that there is equal representation in policy[30] Gender quotas rule that women must constitute a certain number or percentage of a body of government.[30] According to International Idea's Gender Quota Database, there are three types of gender quotas: Reserved seats, Legal candidate quotas and Political party quotas.[30] The quota system places the responsibility of creating more diversity on those doing the recruiting rather than on individual women.[30] The main goal of this is to ensure that there is more equity and diversity in politics, so that governments better reflect the population they are representing.[30]

The U.N. declaration of human rights specifies that men and women are of equal worth.[31] The UN is one of the political bodies that has explicitly expressed that gender parity in the participation at all levels of the UN system is a goal.[32] To achieve this, the UN has a Strategy on Gender Parity that identifies and tracks gender balance in the following areas: leadership and accountability, senior management, hiring and retention, and qualitative social experience of men and women.[33]

The United Nations is striving for gender parity in UN senior leadership by the year 2030.[34] Some departments/agencies of the UN include the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Health Organization, UN Secretariat, World Food Programme, UNESCO, UN High Commission for Refugees, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, and UN Women.[34] Out of these departments only UN Women has a greater percentage of women (75%) than men (25%) at the D1 Level management and above.[34] As of 2015, the departments that are the closest to gender parity at D1 level management is UNICEF at 49% women, 51% men, and UNESCO at 47% women, 53% men.[34]

Although gender parity has not yet been achieved, the United Nations have been adding women to the UN Peacekeeping missions.[34] As of 2018, women made up 3% of UN Peacekeeping force in Mali, 4% of the peacekeeping force in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Golan Heights, 5% in Darfur, Lebanon and South Sudan, 7% in Haiti, 8% in Cyprus and Somalia, and 10% in Liberia and Sudan.[34]