Rape Risk in U.S. Is Greatest in Northern Hemisphere, U.N. Says : Trends: Scandinavia’s danger for women is also described. And America’s murder rate is underscored.

Women in the United States run a higher risk of being raped than those in other countries of the Northern Hemisphere, a U.N. commission reported Tuesday.

And the murder rate in the United States is about five times greater than in European countries or in its neighbor Canada, a new reference work issued by the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) says.

The publication, “Trends in Europe and North America,” was culled from data provided by the Geneva-based agency’s member countries--ranging from North America through Europe to the Pacific shores of Russia and including the Asian states of the ex-Soviet Union as well as Israel. Its authors say it aims to give a detailed social and economic picture of the regions.

At the start of the 1990s, when overall annual statistics were last collated, 118 U.S. women in every 100,000 were reporting that they had been raped. In Canada, the equivalent figure was 23.

The nearest to the U.S. rate came from Sweden, where the figure was 43, and Denmark, where it was 35. The report concludes that the safest places for women are Malta, Italy, Portugal and Israel.

The ECE found the murder rate in the United States to be 12.4 intentional homicides per 100,000 people.

The report also includes offbeat snippets of information, such as that the number of television sets in Monaco is nearly two per head for the tiny principality’s population, while in Albania only 88 people in a thousand have one.

Ninety percent of the homes in Belarus, the former Soviet Byelorussia, and in ex-Communist Bulgaria are owner-occupied. But in Switzerland, one of the world’s richest countries, only 30% of the people live in their own property.

Although many of the figures include only the years through 1993, ECE statisticians argue that the report still shows the developing trends, and they say later editions will be brought up to date.

In other statistics, the report shows that births outside marriage have been rising very rapidly in the European Union’s 15 member states, but especially in Scandinavia--where Denmark has been recording about 46 in every 100 live births and Sweden 49.5. Non-EU Iceland holds the lead with 57.3.

Industrial employees in Britain work longer hours--43.6 a week--than their counterparts in other European countries or North America. In the United States, the average workweek is 34.4 hours.

Households in the United States and Norway are at the bottom of the list for the rate of savings out of disposable income, recording only 4% and 3.4%.