The World's Women 2015

Trends and Statistics

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

• Publisher: United Nations
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9789213620014
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Gender & The Law
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This publication presents statistics and analysis on the status of women and men in the world, highlighting the current situation and changes over time. It is the sixth in a series published since the World Conference on Women in 1995. It emphasizes that progress towards the goal of gender equality has been made in most areas of concern, although uneven and at low pace. Through a life cycle approach, it reveals the challenges and opportunities faced by women at different stages of life and based on where they reside. Trajectories of women and men are highlighted in the statistical findings of the analysis undertaken on population and families, health, education, work, power and decision-making, violence against women, environment and poverty.

Chapter 1

Population and families

Key findings

•There are about 62 million more men than women worldwide. In younger age groups, men outnumber women; in older age groups, women outnumber men.

•About half of all international migrants are women, but men migrants are dominant in developing countries, mostly those in Northern Africa, Oceania, and Southern and Western Asia.

•The age at marriage has increased for both women and men.

•Child marriage has declined; still, almost half of women aged 20 to 24 in Southern Asia and two fifths in sub-Saharan Africa marry before age 18.

•The average number of children per woman declined in countries with high and medium fertility levels but increased slightly in some countries with low fertility.

•Adolescent birth rates declined almost everywhere but are still high in many African and Latin American and Caribbean countries.

•Lone mothers with children constitute about three quarters of one-parent households.

•The proportion of women aged 45 to 49 who are divorced or separated is at least 25 per cent higher than that of men in the same age group.

•Widowhood is about three times higher among women aged 60 to 64 than among men in the same age group.

•The majority of older persons living in one-person households are women.

Introduction

Population dynamics affect the lives of women and men everywhere. Declining fertility rates and increasing longevity have resulted in decreasing proportions of children and increasing proportions of older persons in the world’s population. Women tend to outlive men, with the result that women outnumber men in older age groups. Subtle differences in the distribution of the population by sex have also emerged, starting at birth and extending throughout the life cycle. The global sex ratio (that is, the number of boys and men relative to the number of girls and women) increased across almost all age groups, resulting in an increasing share of boys and men in the global population.

Changes in marriage patterns and fertility suggest that, overall, women are becoming more independent, empowered and in control of their own fertility and lives. The age at marriage has increased, while fertility has declined in countries with high and medium fertility levels. Yet in many countries, child marriage and adolescent fertility persist and a large share of the demand for family planning goes unmet.

At the same time, families are becoming more diverse. One-person households and one-parent households are more common as patterns of marriage, unions and divorce shift. One-person households are more common because of population ageing and changing norms related to intergenerational relationships and family support. Some of the changes in living arrangements are not spurred by personal choices but by larger phenomena. For example, in countries greatly affected by the HIV epidemic and by conflict, women are at higher risk of becoming young widows and children of becoming orphans. Since women and men do not often have the same opportunities in education, employment and access to their own income (see other chapters of this report), changes in living arrangements can have a bearing on the overall differences in well-being between women and men.

Demographic changes are also the background against which many dimensions of life—including health, education, labour and wealth—are being shaped. In fact, the mere distribution of the population across regions and countries largely determines the distribution of human capital, poverty and the burden of disease around the world. Therefore, any assessment of progress in the status of women vis-à-vis men needs to draw first on major demographic changes. This chapter presents trends and current levels in population composition by age and sex and migration in the first part; and marriage and unions, their dissolutions, fertility and living arrangements in the second part. Mortality is covered in the following chapter (see Chapter 2 on Health).

Box 1.1

Gaps in gender statistics related to population and families

Population statistics are routinely collected through population and housing censuses, civil registration systems and/or nationally representative sample surveys. Population and housing censuses are the primary source of information on the size and composition of the population by age and sex, as well as on other demographic topics, including migration, fertility and mortality. Most countries conduct at least one population census every 10 years.a For the 2010 census round (covering the decade 2005–2014), 21 countries or areas, covering 7 per cent of the world’s population, did not conduct a population census, a slight improvement over the previous census decade (1995–2004), when that number was 26.

The availability of data based on household surveys has increased dramatically in the past two decades. For instance, the number of countries able to conduct Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) or Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS) increased from 99 (conducting 189 surveys) in 1995–2004 to 113 (conducting 241 surveys) in 2005–2014. These surveys play a crucial role in providing statistics on fertility and mortality in countries where the civil registration system is underdeveloped.b

The quality of data on age and sex can be affected by the way the data are reported. Errors in the declaration of age are common. In some cultural settings, skewed sex ratios at different ages can also occur as a result of underreporting or misreporting of the female population.c

Inconsistencies among various data sources can occur as a result of differences in data collection operations, including sampling frames and questionnaires. For example, in a number of countries, the large variations in the marital status of women over time can be explained only by differences in the data sources used. Recent research has shown that, compared to population and housing censuses, some household sample surveys suffer from systematic “family bias”. Married women with children are more likely to be included in survey samples, while single women are almost systematically underrepresented.d Basic demographic indicators, such as the average age at marriage or the number of children per woman, vary when different data sources are used.

Data on some demographic topics, such as on informal unions or births occurring outside of marriage, are less often collected. Only a limited number of countries collect and make data available on extramarital births. According to the World Fertility Report 2012,e only 91 countries reported data on extramarital fertility for the period 2000–2011, and only 64 have such data for the three periods, 1965–1989, 1990–1999 and 2000–2011.

Migration is one of the topics where the lack of detail impedes analysis. Data on the reasons why people migrate are often not collected and, when they are, they may be limited to only one primary reason. Women may appear considerably underrepresented in labour mig...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Message from the Secretary-General
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Executive Summary
• Moving forward on gender statistics
• Technical note
• Contents
• 1. Population and families
• 2. Health
• 3. Education
• 4. Work
• 5. Power and decision-making
• 6. Violence against women
• 7. Environment
• List of countries, areas and geographical groupings
• References