Quiz: 5 questions on the economic status of women

How many of the following key questions can you answer?

1. Which country has the most professionally employed women?

Answer +/-

Belarus, where of the whole work force, 56% are women. Followed by Ukraine (55.1%), Moldova (54.6%), Tajikistan (53.3%) and Latvia (53.2%). The UK comes on the 19th place (49.4%), the US on 27th place (48.5%).
At the bottom, we find Niger, Pakistan, Bahrain, Malawi, Chad, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Note: We only considered paid employment, and excluded the agricultural sector.

2. In which country do we find the most female legislators, senior officials and managers?

Answer +/-

In the Philippines, where 58% of the professional 'cadre' are women. Followed by... Tanzania (49%), Ukraine (43%) and Latvia, Lithuania and the US, all at 42%. The UK stands at 24th place.
This means the Philippines is the only country in the world with more women as senior professionals than men.

3. Where do women earn the highest wages?

Answer +/-

In Luxembourg, where female professionals in average earn US$45,938 per year. However, in Luxembourg men earn in average US$94,696 per year, more than double...

On #2 we find Norway (US$33,034), then the US (US$30,581), Iceland (US$27,496) and Denmark (US$27,048).
The UK comes on the 12th place (US$24,448).
At the bottom, we find Sierra Leone, Yemen, DRC, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi and Eritrea.

4. Which country has the smallest difference between the income for men and women?

Answer +/-

There is not one single country where the average income of women is higher than for men.
The best balanced (or least of the worse) is Kenya, where women's income is 17% lower than men's. Runner-ups are Mozambique and Sweden (19% lower), Burundi (22%) and Norway (25%).
The UK is on the 29th place (35% lower).
You have to look way down to find the US, by the way: 46th place where the income of women is 38% less than for men.

5. In which country are women the largest workforce?

Answer +/-

The figures we're looking at are "The share of the female population ages 15 and older who supply, or are available to supply, labour for the production of goods and services". This figure (in contrary to question number 1) includes non-paid labour, but EXcludes household work.
Are you ready? Here we go....

In Burundi 91.8% of the production workforce are women. Close runner ups are Tanzania (86%), Malawi (85.2%), Mozambique (84.7%) and Rwanda (80.4%).
In the US, 59.6% of the production work force are female, and in the UK 55%. Down at the bottom, you have OPT (Palestine) with 10.3%, Saudi Arabia (17.3%)and Egypt (20.1%). Again, that EXCLUDES household work... If we included it, the figures would have been worse!

So.. what's your score?


More on The Road about emancipation, discrimination,and women.

Source: OECD - organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, discovered via WikiGender - a site with a weath of information on gender issues.

Picture courtesy Shehzad Noorani (WFP)