Gender Statistics

Ratio of female to male labor participation rate (%)

In this post, we start looking at the gender statistical indicators. A good reference can be downloaded at: http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/publications/2015/Indicators_of_Gender_Equality.pdf
In the interactive multi-line chart below, the ratio of female to male labor participation rate is shown for recent years. The data for some countries are missing, however all the biggest countries are included. Note that for a few countries, the ratio is higher than 100%, which means more working women than men. Source: World Bank.


From the Wold Bank's website:

"It is certainly true that women fall well behind men on participation. Globally, women’s labor force participation has in fact fallen two percentage points from 57 percent in 1990 to 55 percent in 2012. Yet, in some of the world’s poorest countries, such as Rwanda and Tanzania, women have participation rates close to 90 percent. This does not mean that women are employed in good jobs, farming productive crops, running profitable enterprises, or that they are earning as much as their male counterparts. To the contrary, women in Tanzania, as with other low-income countries, are more concentrated into informal work, subsistence agriculture, and trade while men dominate wage and formal sector employment, particularly in manufacturing, construction, transport, and finance. In extreme poverty, women’s labor force participation is often a better reflection of necessity and survival than choice and opportunity."