International Women's Day
This International Women's Day, we embrace the theme "Accelerate Action" to highlight the urgent need for continued progress towards gender equality.
Despite a decline in child marriages from 26% to 20% over the past two decades, significant challenges remain. Girls' access to education has improved, with equal participation in primary education in most regions. However, girls still face higher out-of-school rates than boys, particularly in primary school. While girls often outperform boys academically, gender disparities persist in fields like STEM, where women are underrepresented, making up less than 30% of the world's researchers.
The gender gap in literacy also remains significant, with only 80% of women being literate compared to 90% of men globally.
Women's participation lags behind men in the workforce, with only 47% of working-age women employed compared to 74% of men, a gap unchanged since 1995. Women also bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid domestic and care work, spending about three times as many hours on these tasks as men.
Women have lower access to formal financial services, limiting their entrepreneurial potential. Political representation has seen some progress, with women holding 25% of parliamentary seats globally, but they remain underrepresented in higher echelons of power. In the private sector, women hold only 28% of managerial positions, and just 7.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
Additionally, violence against women remains a critical issue, with one-third experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner.
This Women's Day, let's Accelerate Action to address these disparities and create a more equitable world for all.
