Download the Status of the World's Women (PDF) [1]
Women and Economic Security:
Worldwide, women constitute about 70 percent of the absolute poor—those living on less than a dollar a day.
Women and the Economy:
The increase in female employment in the developed world has been the main driving force of economic growth in the past couple of decades. Those women have contributed more to global GDP growth than have either new technology or the new giants, China and India.
Women and Education:
Worldwide, 18.3 percent of the adult population (800 million people) is illiterate. Almost two-thirds of them (64 percent) are women.
Women and Violence:
Each year, an estimated 800,000 people are trafficked across borders, 80 per cent of them women and girls. Most of them end up trapped in the commercial sex trade. This figure does not include the substantial number of women and girls who are bought and sold within their own countries, for which there are scant data.
Women and Healthcare:
Sexual and reproductive ill health accounts for one-third of the global burden of disease among women of reproductive age and one-fifth of the burden of disease among the population overall.
