Women around the world are still victims of the widespread gender bias, according to a new index that highlights the extent of the global backlash towards gender equality.In the study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), almost 90 per cent of the world\u2019s population is biased against women.The data is from 75 countries, covering over 80 per cent of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
Despite decades of progress in closing the equality gap, the 90 per cent of the population holds some sort of bias against women in relation to politics, economics, education and violence.According to the index, about half of the world\u2019s population, both men and women, feel that men make better political leaders.Over 40 per cent of the population feel that men make better business executives and that they have more right to jobs.<\/p>\n
The study further revealed 28 per cent of the population think it is justified for a man to beat his wife.\u00a0The head of UNDP\u2019s Human Development Report Office Pedro Concei\u00e7\u00e3o said despite efforts to ensure that women have the same access to life\u2019s basic needs as men to breach the inequality, the gaps are still there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have come a long way in recent decades to ensure that women have the same access to life\u2019s basic needs as men. We have reached parity in primary school enrollment and reduced maternal mortality. But gender gaps are still all too obvious in other areas,\u201d he said.Concei\u00e7\u00e3o said the data show that perceptions and expectations in society about the role of women are prejudiced against them.\u201cWhile in many countries these biases are shrinking, in many others the biases are actually sliding back.<\/p>\n
If you take the overall average of the information we have, we show that on average we are sliding back \u2013 that biases, instead of shrinking, are growing back,\u201d he said.The survey further reveals the enormous power gaps that still exists between men and women in economies, political systems, and corporations.\u201cWhile men and women vote at similar rates, only 24 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide are held by women and there are only 10 female heads of government out of a possible 193,\u201d reads the report adding women in the labour market are paid less than men.<\/p>\n
UNDP is now calling on governments and institutions to introduce legislation and policies that address the engrained prejudice.\u201cFor instance, by using taxes to incentivize, fairly sharing child-care responsibilities, or by encouraging women and girls to enter traditionally male-dominated sectors such as the armed forces and information technology,\u201d reads part of the report.Countries with the\u00a0highest numbers of people showing any kind of bias against gender equality are Jordan, Qatar, Nigeria, Pakistan\u00a0and Zimbabwe.The countries with the lowest levels of gender bias are Andorra, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Women around the world are still victims of the widespread gender bias, according to a new index that highlights the extent of the global backlash towards gender equality.In the study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), almost 90 per cent of the world\u2019s population is biased against women.The data is from 75 countries, covering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,8],"tags":[2032,2002,212,2031],"class_list":["post-3746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-culture-and-art","category-homepage-english","tag-gender-equality","tag-mercy-asamba","tag-united-nations","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\n