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

Reuters AlertNet

Reuters AlertNet is a humanitarian news network based around a popular website. It aims to keep relief professionals and the wider public up-to-date on humanitarian crises around the globe. AlertNet attracts upwards of ten million users a year, has a network of 400 contributing humanitarian organizations and its weekly email digest is received by more than 26,000 readers. It was started in 1997 by Reuters Foundation - an educational and humanitarian trust - to place Reuters' core skills of speed, accuracy and freedom from bias at the service of the humanitarian community.

Read the International Women's Day Reuters AlertNet articles:
- Women experience brunt of world's poverty ... more
- EMPOWERING: Helping refugee women help themselves in Nairobi ... more

International Women's Day 2012 on