Gender gap in the world

Nowadays the gender gap in the world is more and more marked.

Especially in countries like Syria, Pakistan and Lebanon, where women have a very weaker position in society and girls are forced to get married at a very young age, there's a great difference between men and women.

Unfortunately this main problem is everywhere, even in smaller quantities.

Lorenzo D. e Enea B.

As proof of this dramatic situation there were, and there are, a lot of facts and figures to check.

Salary gap

Despite the fact that in 1977 in Italy a law was passed that establishes equal treatment at work and equal pay between men and women, this unfortunately has never been the case.

In many countries women are significantly disadvantaged in accessing credit which prevent them from starting a company or making a living by managing financial assets. For instance, there are still 72 countries where women from specific social groups do not have the right to open a bank account or to obtain credit.

Emma C.

According to the figures of Istat (National Statistical Institute of Italy), in the European Union the employment rate of men is higher than the one of women: respectively 74% and 63% in 2019. Nearly 30% of employed women in EU work part-time, compared to only 8% of men. This happens because today women still don't have the same salary of men.

Did you know?

Currently, one of the most discussed issues is the prostitution of women who, as a consequece of their economic condition, are forced to sell their bodies to live. Unfortunately this problem has always existed and concerned women. For example, according to figures from Istat (National Statistical Institute of Italy), 71.3% of Italian prostitutes are mothers who have taken this decision to raise their children, due to a serious economic crisis.

Emma C.

Gender gap at school

Looking at Educational Attainment data (UNESCO), 96.1% of the gender gap has been earesed so far in more developed countries, and therefore it's at a significantly more advanced stage than the level of Economic Partecipation and Political Empowerment index.

Thirty-five countries have already achieved full parity on this subindex and 120 countries have achieved at least 95% of their educational gender gaps. On the other hand, 8 countries, including Guinea, Congo, Mali and Democratic Rep, have yet to close more than 20% of their gaps.

As in the past, the gap varies across different levels of education. Gender gaps in basic skills are somewhat wider than those in higher levels of education: 94.4% of girls and 92.9% of boys aged 15-24 in the world are literate, and 82.2% of girls in the world where enrolled in primary education in 2018, versus 90.5% of boys. While these figures highlight a persistent gap at the entry-level of education, it's also important to underscore that there are still over 10% of both boys and girls who are left behind, therefore making sure that all children receive at least some basic education is as important as closing gender gap in this dimension.

At higher levels of education, though parity across gender is more common, participation is still relatively low for both sexes: only approximately 66% of boys and girls are enrolled in secondary education. At tertiary education levels, women have surpassed men, but still only 46.6% of young women and 35.6% of young men who have graduated from high school globaly are attending university.

Alice G.

Iceland, with approximately 70% of its Political Empowerment gap closed, is the country where the presence of women across Parliament, as Ministers and Heads of states is the most widespread compared to all other countries assessed by the index. Iceland's score is 10 percentage points higher than the second-ranked Norway and it is almost four times higher than the global average.

Gender gap in politics

Political empowerment is the area where women are severely under-represented, so globally women's presence and participation in politics is still extremily limited. For instance, considering the sum of the seats of all Parliaments, only 25.2% of these 35,127 global seats are occupied by women. Furthermore, in countries like Papua New Guinea, there are no women in Parliament. Considering the higher-level institutional roles, the presence of women grows even thinner: only 21.2% of the 3,343 ministers are women, and there are 32 countries where women represent less than 10% of ministers in office today. Moreover, in some countries like Azerbaijan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Belize, Papua New Guinea and Thailand, there aren't women ministers at all. Only ten European countries currently have a woman as a Prime Minister.

Enea B. e Alice G.

Violence against women

Violence against women, one of the most discussed issues today, is a consequence of gender inequality. This happens because, the low consideration of the woman often leads the man to believe that he can do whatever he wants to his partner, who is considered weaker. Every day we read in the newspaper or see on TV episodes of violence carried out by jealous ex husbands, or simply by unknow people. Just think about the fact that we have never heard the story of a man being raped, while every 3 minutes a woman in the world is raped.

Globally about 15 million girls between ages from 15 to 19 have suffered sexual violence. In other countries girls are more likely to be raped by a partner or by a former partner. According to a research conducted in 2014, 31.5% of Italian women aged 16 to 70 (6.78 million) have suffered a form of physical or sexual violence during their life.

According to a United Nations study, 58% of reported murders of women in 2017 were committed by a partner, former partner or family member. Worldwide, 137 feminicides occur every day. The highest total number of murders of women occurs in Asia, with 20,000 cases registered in 2017.

Emma C. e Lorenzo D.

Chronicle of an event

A significant episode called "Circeo's Carnage", occured in Italy, in the city of San Felice Circeo in 1975. Two girls who arrived in one of the three boys' house, known shortly before, were beaten, raped, massacred and insulted by the three boys for two whole days. One of the two girls died because she was drowned in the bathtub, while the other one survived because she pretended to be dead and was able to call for help. This is just one of many grisly episodes that occur every day around the world.

Emma C.

Another violence against women occurred in 1975 in Yorkshire, England: a man called "The ripper" killed and raped prostitutes, that is to say women who, due to wide spread poverty in those years, found themselves forced into prostitution to support their family. This man was a serial killer because he killed more than 8 women for five consecutive years. Initially the first murders weren't taken into cosideration by the police, because they were considered useless and this makes us understand the low consideration for woman.

Alice G.