From zephyr@compumedia.comTue Aug 22 02:31:49 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 23:18 PDT From: Kate McLaughlin Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: owner-beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: UN: Some Women More Equal Than Others >From the Seattle Times, August 17, 1995: ________________________________________________________ Some Women More Equal Than Others, U.N. Reports By Doug Mellgren Associated Press OSLO, Norway -- A study released today supports what women worldwide have long suspected: Most are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. The U.N. Human Development Report ranked the world's countries on an index based on such criteria as life expectancy, education and income. Canada was first on the regular scale for the second year in a row. Therefore, according to the index, women in Canada can expect to live longer, have better access to education and earn more than in other countries. The United States was second, up from eighth last year; and Japan was third, unchanged from 1994. This year, the researchers introduced a new dimension by ranking nations for gender equality. "It came out, in country after country, that women do 53 percent of the total work and men do 47 percent," said Mahbub ul Haq, a man who leads the team that wrote the report for the U.N. Development Program. "The male community is going to hate us," he said. Topping the gender-equality scale were Nordic countries, with Sweden first, followed by Finland, Norway and Denmark. "This is hardly surprising," said the 230-page report. "These countries have adopted gender equality and women's empowerment as conscious national policies." The United States was fifth, followed by Australia, France and Japan. At the bottom of the list -- and presumably with the least gender equality -- Mali, Sierra Leone and Afghan- istan. Nordic women make up at least 30 percent of their countries' national legislatures. In the United States, about 10 percent of Congress is female. Worldwide, women hold only 10 percent of legislative seats and 6 percent of government Cabinet posts. Seventy percent of the world's 1.3 billion people living in poverty were women. To judge the total contribution of women, the report estimated the value of such unpaid work as child care, housework and farm labor as $16 billion for both sexes. The report said about $11 billion worth of that work was done by women, who toiled longer than men in every country. "If women's work were accurately reflected in national statistics, it would shatter the myth that men are the main breadwinners of the world," said Haq, a former Paki- stani finance minister, who is special adviser to UNDP. Strong economic, educational and health-care development doesn't automatically mean that men in those countries share wealth, power and opportunities with women. The report points out that Canada, ranked first on the overall index, plunges to ninth on the gender-adjusted scale. Japan falls from third to eighth. "The Japanese are very high in income and development, but they don't share it with the women," Haq said. In Japan, women make up 6 percent of parliament, 2 percent of Cabinet, and earn less than half the wages of males. And, in the end, men will also lose out by discriminating against women, the report concluded. "To deny women full participation in economic and social development is to rob future generations of the opportunity to reach their full potential," Haq said. * * * * * Gender-Adjusted Rankings Here are the top and bottom 10 countries of 130 nations on the United Nations gender-related development index. The top countries were those considered to have approached gender equality. 1. Sweden 2. Finland 3. Norway 4. Denmark 5. United States 6. Australia 7. France 8. Japan 9. Canada 10. Austria [intermediate rankings not given] 121. Burundi 122. Chad 123. Mozambique 124. Ethiopia 125. Guinea 126. Burkina Faso 127. Niger 128. Mali 129. Sierra Leone 130. Afghanistan ____________________________________________________