WOMEN AND POWER : School and Work : Growing Up

* Discrimination against girls is so great that among 45 developing countries for which recent data is available, there are only two where mortality rates for girls age 1 to 4 years are not higher than those for boys in the same age group.

* In developing countries, the percentage of girls enrolled in high school has climbed from 17% of those eligible in 1970 to 36% in 1990. However, two-thirds of illiterates in the developing world are women.

* Even in industrial countries, women are poorly represented in scientific and technical studies. In Spain, the ratio of female to male third-level students in these fields is 28%, in Austria 25% and in Canada 29%.

* The world’s youngest brides are in Bangladesh, where the average age of women at their first marriage is 16.7 years.

Working

* Women account for more than 40% of total employment but fewer than 10% of parliamentary seats in industrial countries.

* In South Asia, the employment participation rates of women are only 29% those of men; in the Arab states, they are only 16%.

* In the South Korea, women’s wages are only 47% those of men; in Japan women receive only 51% of male wages and they hold only 7% of administrative and managerial jobs.

* If women’s unpaid housework were counted as productive output in national income accounts, global output would increase by 20% to 30%.

Sources: U.N. Development Program’s “Human Development Report 1993”; the Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights