Women represent the world by 49.
6 % while men accounted for 50.
4%.
It is shown that women perform 66% of the world's work, but receive only 11% of the world's income.
Women's presence in leadership roles is slowly increasing, but is not even close to 50%.
The 1995 annual median earnings of women working year-round, full-time, was $22,497, while for men it was $31,496.
In about 188 democratic countries, women representation in the upper house is found only in 73 countries while 133 countries have women representation in the lower house.
The highest women representation in the lower house at 56 % is Rwanda, an eastern central African country.
The lowest representation at 0.
30% is Yemen, an Arab country.
The highest women representation at 47.
20% in the upper house is Bolivia followed by Burundi at 46.
20%.
The lowest women representation (upper house) at 1.
80 % is Yemen again.
USA is represented by women at 16.
7% in the lower house and 17% in the upper house.
Women representation in U.
K is 22% in the lower house and 20% in the upper house.
Japan's women representation is 11.
30 % in the lower house and 18.
20% in the upper house.
India has women representation of 10.
80% in the lower house and 10.
30 in the upper house while Pakistan has 22.
20% and 17% respectively.
Afghanistan is represented by women at 27.
70% in the lower house and 27.
50 % in the upper house.
China's women representation is 21.
30 % in the lower house and nil representation in the upper house.
The overall women political leadership representation is very low with only 19.
2% women Member of Parliament in the world; 19.
3% in the lower house and 18.
3%.
in the upper house.
The Nordic countries (single house ) women representation is 41.
6%, Americas (both houses) is 21.
4%, Europe excluding Nordic countries is 19.
9%, Asia is 18.
6%, Sub-Saharan is 12.
2%, Pacific is 12.
6% and the Arab states is 11.
7%.
In civil service, women are getting fairly represented fairly well in most countries through competitive exams and yet the top position is denied to them.
It is stated that U.
K deploys 40% of women in the civil service; USA's half employment goes to women while women civil service representation in India is 20.
6% yearly, Pakistan attains 18% while China, Korea and Thailand are have a policy of recruiting the best of the best in a fair and equitable manner.
In India, women score even better in the order of merit.
With 30% reservation for women in local self government, the local administration in India is ensured with a fair degree of women representation.
The overall world representations of women at work both in develop and undeveloped countries is far below the desired level.
The unequal treatment in undeveloped countries and surprisingly often voiced from the matured and developed countries reveals the difficulty in honoring the sanctity of the principle of equity, justice and fairness.
The quality of a nation is reflected by how it treats its women.
Admission of the fact that some women possess very undesirable characteristics is a matter of exceptions not meant to validate it as a general rule.
The need of the hour is recognition of the bitter truth about denial of access to women in education, social welfare measures, jobs and promotion including opportunity to participate in public services.
The truth about half of the world's population kept in denial of equal opportunity put to shame the slogan for participatory process to achieve the ambitious goal of poverty reduction.
The millennium development goal embedded a key strategy to achieve the goal of poverty reduction by 2015 through women empowerment and participation.
The facts apparently seem to waive off the key strategy to reach the stated goal.
The world is incomplete without women and denying them equal opportunity is implicit as devaluating women as a partner.
The decision to balance the inequity depends on each one of us.
The freedom is ours and the choice is the future.