Decreasing the gender gap

The World Economic Forum has a new report out called Measuring the Global Gender Gap in which it rates the countries in the world that have done the best to improve economic, political and health conditions of women. OneWorld US has report. Update: The Spec has an article on a Stats Canada report in time for International Women's Day.


Here's an excerpt:

Advancement within professions such as law, medicine and engineering, in which women are increasingly well represented in developed countries, is of great concern. One survey of graduates carried out by Yale Law Women points to the growing numbers of women attorneys (25-35%), only a small number of whom are partners in firms (5-15%), and to the importance of what they call ‘family-friendly’ and ‘female-friendly’ practices in the profession.

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A study in the United States has found 49% of high-achieving women to be childless, as compared with only 19% of their male colleagues.

Globally women hold only 15.6% of elected parliamentary seats.

Here's Canada's rankings:

Economic Participation - 7th

Political Empowerment - 11th

Educational Attainment - 12th

Health & well- being - 14th

Economic opportunity - 27th *

*Concentration of poorly paid job 'ghettos'. "This is most commonly the result of negative or obstructive attitudes, and of legal and social systems which use maternity laws and benefits to penalize women economically for childbirth and child care responsibilities, and discourage – or actively prevent – men from sharing family responsibilities" (page 3)

Excerpt from the StatsCan report:

Women make up a disproportionate share of the population in Canada with low incomes as measured by Statistics Canada's low income cut-off (LICO) on an after-tax basis. Unattached women are particularly likely to have low incomes.

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Families headed by female lone parents also have relatively high rates of low income. In 2003, 38% of all families headed by lone-parent mothers had incomes which fell below the after-tax LICO. In comparison, this was the case for 13% of male lone-parent families and just 7% of non-elderly two-parent families with children.