I'm atoning for putting a less than reliable document up on the blog with an authentic report. The World Economic Forum just released their Global Gender Gap Report of 2007.
They analyze the gap by looking at the division of resources between men and women in their native countries. They have some really fascinating findings. I was shocked that the US got beat out by Bulgaria, South Africa and Cuba among others. We barely nudge out Kazakhstan for our place. How does that work? It goes back to the division of resources. So while there might be less resources overall in Bulgaria, Bulgarian women have better access to their Bulgarian resources than US women have to US resources.
Here's some more info from their website:
The Report examines four critical areas of inequality between men and women:
1. Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2. Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
3. Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio
Back to my info-
The good news: overall the world gap is on the decline. Hurray!
The bad news: The US slipped back from last year thanks to women earning less than their male counterparts and becoming even more under-represented politically. Internationally women are still seen as unequal to men and suffer the policies of those views (like infanticide, genital mutilation, poverty and oppression)
The report explains it much better than I do. Take a look. It's very viewer friendly with lots of easy graphs and stats. You can see it here
1 comment:
Very interesting, thanks for posting this. I've heard the argument that a country's gender gap can be measured by its friendliness (or unfriendliness) toward public breastfeeding. Sweden is number 1 when it comes to breastfeeding legislation and practice. And the US has a LONG way to go.
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