rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University

MDG
3
Promote gender equality and
empower women
Women make important contributions to economic and
social development. Expanding opportunities for them in
the public and private sectors is a core development strategy.
Education is the starting point. By enrolling and staying
in school, girls gain the skills they need to enter the
labor market, care for families, and make decisions for
themselves. Achieving gender equity in education is an
important demonstration that young women are full, contributing
members of society.
Girls have made substantial gains in primary and secondary
school enrollment. In 1990, the primary school
enrollment rate of girls in developing countries was only
86 percent that of boys. By 2011, the average was 97 percent.
1 Similar improvements have been made in secondary
schooling, where girls’ enrollments have risen from 78
percent to 96 percent of that of boys. Progress has been
greatest in richer countries. In countries classified by the
World Bank as upper-middle-income, girls’ enrollments in
primary and secondary schools now exceed those of
FIGURE 3a Gender parity in primary, secondary, and
tertiary education by region, 2011
East Asia & Pacific
Europe & Central Asia
Latin America &
the Caribbean
Middle East &
North Africa
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
0 30 60 90 120 150
Ratio of female to male enrollment
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics and World Development Indicators
database.
boys. But averages can obscure large differences between
countries: overenrollment of girls in one country does not
counterbalance underenrollment in another. At the end of
the 2011 school year, 31 upper-middle-income countries
and 23 lower-middle-income countries had reached or
exceeded equal enrollment of girls in primary and secondary
education, but only 9 low-income countries had done
so. Two regions lag behind: South Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa. The differences are also notable for urban-rural
areas. For several African countries, the gap between male
and female enrollment remains large, especially for secondary
enrollment. Only a few countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa have higher enrollment rates for girls (Niger,
Rwanda, and Senegal in urban areas). However, most of
the countries included in figure 3b show that boys have
higher enrollment rates compared with girls.
More women are participating in public life at the
highest levels. The proportion of parliamentary seats held
by women continues to increase. The Latin America and
Caribbean region, where women now hold 23 percent of
all parliamentary seats, remains in the lead. The most
impressive gains have been made in South Asia, where
the number of seats held by women more than tripled
between 1999 and 2010. In Nepal, women held one-third
of parliamentary seats in 2011. In Sub-Saharan Africa,
Rwanda leads the way: since 2008, 56 percent of its parliamentary
seats have been held by women. The Middle East
and North Africa lag far behind.
Full economic empowerment of women remains a
distant goal. While many women work long hours and
make important contributions to their families’ welfare,
they often work in the informal sector, typically as unpaid
family workers. Women’s share in paid employment in the
nonagricultural sector has risen marginally but remains
less than 20 percent in South Asia and in the Middle East
and North Africa. The largest proportion of working
women is found in Europe and Central Asia, where in
recent years, 47–48 percent of nonagricultural wage
employees were women.
1. The ratio between the enrollment rate of girls and boys (gender parity ratio) increased from 91 in 1999 to 97 in 2010 for the developing
regions as a whole—falling within the plus-or-minus 3-point margin of 100 percent that is the accepted measure for parity.
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