THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180416
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Despite decades of progress in health and education, women around the world are still overworked, underpaid and underappreciated, a new U.N. report indicates.
The sixth annual Human Development Report, compiled by a team of economists led by former Pakistani finance minister Mahbub ul Haq, marshals pages of statistical data to show that ``in no society do women enjoy the same opportunities as men.''
The United States is rated fifth, behind Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark, on a new scale that reflects ``gender disparities'' in 130 countries.
The ranking slips to eighth - behind the four Nordic countries, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands - on a second index that assesses countries' ``empowerment'' of women in government and business.
On a third index, the United States is listed second only to Canada in overall human development - an index combining health, education and real purchasing power per person.
``There has been tremendous progress in education and health for women around the world in recent decades,'' said James Gustave Speth, the U.N. development agency's administrator, in an interview. ``But then they hit this glass ceiling.''
The report also showed that the United States lags behind a handful of countries making faster progress toward equality. Between 1970 and 1992, American women slid from first place to fifth, behind the four Nordic countries, on the ``gender-related development index.''
According to the report:
Among the developing world's 900 million illiterate people, women outnumber men 2 to 1. Girls constitute 60 percent of the 130 million children without access to primary school.
Of 1.3 billion people in poverty, 70 percent are women.
The average female wage is three-fourths of the male wage in the nonagricultural sector in 55 countries with comparable data.
In developing countries, less than a seventh of the administrators and managers are women.
Around the world, women occupy 10 percent of the parliamentary seats and 6 percent of the Cabinet positions.
The report includes what Speth called ``the first concrete estimate'' of worldwide economic discrimination against women - ``not only unpaid work, but also underpaid,'' he said. ``When you add it up it comes, very crudely, to $11 trillion, about half of global economic output.''
``If women's work were accurately reflected in national statistics, it would shatter the myth that men are the main breadwinners of the world,'' Haq said. ``It came out, in country after country, that women do 53 percent of the total work and men do 47 percent.''
To help close the gaps in pay and representation, the report calls for a campaign to ratify and carry out the 1979 U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Although 139 countries have ratified this charter, 41 U.N. members have not signed it; six signatories, including the United States, have not ratified it; and 43 others have attached reservations or conditions to their ratification.
KEYWORDS: WOMEN SALARIES by CNB