Ammon News - Republished from Internationalwomensday.com

AMMONNEWS - Apparently Nordic countries provide the greatest equality for women when it comes to economics, educaton, politics and health. Equal pay, labour force participation rates, literacy rates, enrolment in tertiary education, female representation in parliament, life expectancy and sex ratios at birth are most equal in Norway, Finland and Sweden.

Female empowerment is embraced more today than any other time in world history. And in the global push for gender equality in everything from business to politics, education to health, it's Europe that has made the greatest strides to close the so-called gender gap.

The World Economic Forum, the nonprofit organization known for its annual economic summit in Davos Switzerland has been publishing an annual Global Gender Gap Report since 2006 that ranks countries by their gender performance.

Norway, Finland and Sweden are ranked the best countries for gender equality. Those Nordic countries and their Western European neighbors account for 16 of the top 30 countries with the greatest gender parity in the world.

Meanwhile, the US ranked at only No. 27, behind Lesotho (No. 16), Mozambique (No. 18) and Moldova (No. 20). The worst-ranked countries were sprinkled throughout the Middle East and Asia. Garden spots like Chad (129th), Saudi Arabia (128th) and Pakistan (127th) populated the bottom of the list. Yemen ranked absolutely worst at No. 130.

The Global Gender Gap Report measures the size of the gender gap (the disparity in opportunities available for men and women) for 130 countries in four critical areas:
- economic participation and opportunity
- health and survival
- educational attainment
- political empowerment.

A country's rank is based on the overall score, which is expressed in a percent. The score represents how much of the gender gap the country has been able to close. A score of 100% would represent perfect equality. The majority of the data come from various non-government organizations such as the International Labor Organization, United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization.

Norway, ranked No. 1, scored 82%. Finland came in second place with an estimated 82%, while Sweden posted a score of 81.4%. The U.S. has closed 72% of its gender gap, according to the study, while Yemen has closed 47%.

Other countries in the top 10 include Iceland (80%), New Zealand (79%), the Philippines (76%), Denmark (75%) and the Netherlands (74%). The U.K. ranked 13th (74%), while Canada ranked 31st (71%),hurt by poor showings in educational attainment and political empowerment.

Global Gender facts:

Networking ...

Women use 20,000 words a day while men only use 7,000

Global Issues ...

Females in developing countries on average carry 20 litres of water per day over 6 km
Globally women account for the majority of people aged over 60 and over 80
Pregnant women in Africa are 180 times more likely to die than in Western Europe
530,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year
World population hit 6,872,741,131 on 1 January 2009
Of 1.2 billion people living in poverty worldwide, 70% are women
80% of the world's 27 million refugees are women
Women own around only 1% of the world's land
AIDS sees women's life expectancy of 43 in Uganda and Zambia
5 people are added to the world's population every 2 seconds
Women are 2/3 of the 1 billion+ illiterate adults who have no access to basic education

Innovation ...

Globally women comprise 42% internet users (Italy 37% ... US & Canada 51%)
In OECD countries women comrpise only 30 per cent of degrees in science and technology
Women's representation in computer and information sciences workforce is around 30% globally
Female inventors still only account for around 10% of the US inventor population

Business / Finance ...

Women control $14 trillion in assets and this should grow to $22 trillion over next 10 years
Women comprise 21 of the 37 million people living below the poverty line in the US
Only in Japan and Peru are women more active in starting a business than men
Women spend more time researching before they invest than men do

Media / Arts ...

Only 21% of all news subjects (people interviewed or whom the news is about) are female
Women less than 1% department heads, editors, media owners but third of working journalists
80% of UK purchasing decisions are made by women but 83% of 'creatives' are men

Work ...

Women do two-thirds of the world's work but receive only 10% of the world's income
Women's education is the most powerful predictor of lower fertility rates
One year out of college women earn 20% less than men and 10 years later 31% less
Women on average are away from workforce for 14.7 years compared to 1.6 years for men
The biggest EU gender pay gap is in Cyprus and Estonia at 25% then Slovakia at 24%

Government ...

56% of women who voted supported Obama compared to only 49% of men voted for Obama
Until 20 years ago there had never been more than 5% women MPs globally
Benazir Bhutto was the first woman prime minister of a muslim country (assassinated 27/12/07)
From the 27 EU member states, UK ranks 15 for women's representation in national Parliaments
From 1945 to 1995 the percentage of women MPs worldwide increased four-fold