Worldwide, the male population is slightly higher than the female population, although this varies by country. As of 2024, Hong Kong has the highest share of women worldwide with almost ** percent. Moldova followed behind with around ** percent. Among the countries with the largest share of women in the total population, several were former Soviet states or were located in Eastern Europe. By contrast, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman had some of the highest proportions of men in their populations.

The average for 2023 based on 47 countries was 48.3 percent. The highest value was in Hong Kong: 54.92 percent and the lowest value was in Qatar: 28.48 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Worldwide, the male population is slightly higher than the female population. As of 2024, the country with the highest percentage of men was Qatar, with only slightly more than *********** of the total population being women. The United Arab Emirates followed with ** percent. Different factors can influence the gender distribution in a population, such as life expectancy, the sex ratio at birth, and immigration. For instance, in Qatar, the large share of males is due to the high immigration flows of male labor in the country.

The average for 2023 based on 47 countries was 51.06 percent. The highest value was in Moldova: 53.98 percent and the lowest value was in Malta: 48.11 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

As of December 2024, women constituted 63.8 percent of the Rwandan parliament (lower or single house). This makes it the country with the highest share of women in parliament worldwide. Cuba had the second-highest share of female MPs with 55.7 percent, followed by Nicaragua. The European country with the highest percentage of women in their parliament was Andorra with 50 percent.

The Bahamas had the highest female employment-to-population ratio in the world in 2023 at 90 percent of the women in working age in some form of employment. Iceland had the second highest female employment rate of the countries, reaching 81 percent.

The average for 2023 based on 53 countries was 50.08 percent. The highest value was in Zimbabwe: 52.38 percent and the lowest value was in the Seychelles: 44.82 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Worldwide, Jordan had the highest share of women in managerial positions in 2021, reaching 57 percent. Saint Lucia and the Philippines followed behind, also with a female manager rate of more than 50 percent. On the other hand, only less than six percent of managers in Pakistan were women, followed by Japan and Timor-Leste at 13 percent.

The average for 2023 based on 12 countries was 50.47 percent. The highest value was in Uruguay: 51.51 percent and the lowest value was in Paraguay: 49.85 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2023, Mongolia had the highest share of women employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, with ** percent of all those employed in STEM fields being women. Belarus, Lesotho, the United States, and Barbados rounded out the top five countries employing the highest share of women in STEM fields.

The average for 2022 based on 117 countries was 1.21 percent. The highest value was in Qatar: 1.79 percent and the lowest value was in Benin: 0.59 percent. The indicator is available from 1970 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The average for 2024 based on 176 countries was 51.13 percent. The highest value was in Madagascar: 82.56 percent and the lowest value was in Yemen: 4.91 percent. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Over 60 percent of the seats in Rwanda's national parliament were held by women as of December 2022. The country had the strongest female participation in politics in Africa. It also ranked first globally, with the highest proportion of women in power in lower houses than in any other nation. Second in the African ranking, Senegal registered 46 percent of parliamentary seats occupied by females. South Africa, Namibia, and Mozambique also recorded a level of women participation above 40 percent. The best performing countries regarding female representation had in common the adoption of electoral quotas for women, a condition not present in the nations on the bottom of the ranking. In the last position, Nigeria had only 3.9 percent of women holding seats in the country's House of Representatives.

As of June 2024, Cuba led the ranking of countries with the largest share of women in Parliament in Latin America and the Caribbean, with **** percent. It was followed closely by Nicaragua, where **** percent of the MPs (members of parliament) were female. Women in politics In the history of democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, there have been little more than a dozen females leading the executive power. Some of the most recent and notorious ones have been Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica or Xiomara Castro in Honduras. Castro has been the most recently elected female president in Latin America, making Honduras one of the only ** countries in the world where the de facto highest position of executive power was held by a woman as of August of 2023. Still a long way to go The share of seats held by women in parliament in Latin America and the Caribbean region is above the global average, and it is actually the second largest one in the world, surpassed only by Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Bolivia, and Costa Rica have a higher percentage of females in parliament than countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, or France. This feat notwithstanding, Latin America and the Caribbean still struggles with a rather improvable performance in the gender gap index, especially when it comes to political empowerment. Even countries which seem to do better regarding gender equality, such as Cuba and Argentina have a low score in the category of political empowerment, which across all countries in the region tends to be remarkably lower than the score of the other categories: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, and educational attainment.

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The average for 2023 based on 20 countries was 50.67 percent. The highest value was in Puerto Rico: 52.88 percent and the lowest value was in Honduras: 49.65 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The Netherlands was the country in the world with the highest labor force participation rate among young women in 2022, reaching over ** percent. It was also the country with the highest labor force participation rate among young men.

In 2020, Tonga was the country with the highest share of women who were overweight or obese worldwide, with around 87 percent of women with a high body mass index (BMI). This statistic shows the countries with the highest share of women who were overweight or obese in 2020.

The average for 2023 based on 177 countries was 8.15 percent. The highest value was in Swaziland: 36.7 percent and the lowest value was in Cambodia: 0.25 percent. The indicator is available from 1991 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The highest position of executive power has been held by a woman in just 65 countries since 1960. Since Sirimavo Bandaranaike was first elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960, the number of women in power has grown slowly, with the fastest growth coming in the past 15 years. As of July 2025, there were 14 countries led by women, with Liechtenstein, Namibia, and Suriname electing their first women leaders in 2025; while Thailand's prime minister was suspended in July following an ethics scandal. Despite this number growing in recent decades, there have never been more than 17 countries with women in the highest positions of power in a single year, which is less than 10 percent of the number of men who have held these positions (as today, there are 193 UN member states). Records The women who have served the longest consecutive terms in these positions are Angela Merkel of Germany (16 years, 16 days), Dame Eugenia Charles of Dominica (14 years, 328 days), and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia (12 years, 6 days). The longest combined non-consecutive terms were held by Indira Gandhi of India (16 years, 15 days) and Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina (20 years, 234 days). Just 15 countries have had more than one woman in the highest position of executive power, and most of these countries can be found either in the Indian sub-continent or in Europe. Of these 14, Finland, Iceland, Moldova, New Zealand, and the UK are the only countries to have had three female leaders, although the unique federal system of Switzerland has had five women serve in nine annual-terms as President of the Swiss Confederation. The first woman Prime Minister The first democratically elected female Prime Minister was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, who took over the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party when her husband was assassinated in 1959. Bandaranaike successfully led her party to victory in three elections, in 1960, 1970 and 1994, however constitutional changes in the 1980s meant that her final term as Prime Minister was spent in a more ceremonial role, while the President now held the real executive power (although the President at this time was also a woman; Bandaranaike's daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga).