Since 2000, employment-to-population ratio worldwide was constantly significantly higher among men than among women. Whereas more than two thirds of men were estimated to be employed worldwide in 2025, less than half of women were the same. Moreover, employment rates among both genders fell over the time period, with the decrease being larger among men.

In 2023, there were estimated to be approximately 3.5 billion people employed worldwide, compared to 2.23 billion people in 1991 - an increase of over one billion people. Of these employed people in 2023, approximately 2.1 billion were men, and 1.4 billion were female.

There is a gender gap in the global literacy rate. Although literacy rates have generally increased worldwide for both men and women, men are on average more literate than women. As of 2023, about 90.6 percent of men and a little less than 84.1 percent of women in the world were literate. Adult literacy rate is defined as the percentage of people aged 15 years and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life. Youth literacy rate Not only does the literacy gender gap concern adults, it also exists among the world’s younger generations aged 15 to 24. Despite an overall increase in literacy, young men are still more literate than young women. In fact, the global youth literacy rate as gender parity index was 0.98 as of 2023, indicating that young women are not yet as literate as young men. Gender pay gap Gender gaps occur in many different spheres of global society. One such issue concerns salary gender gaps in the professional life. Regarding the controlled gender pay gap, which measures the median salary for men and women with the same job and qualifications, women still earned less than men as of 2024. The difference was even bigger when measuring the median salary for all men and women. However, not everyone worries about gender pay gaps. According to a survey from 2021, 54 percent of the female respondents deemed the gender pay gap a real problem, compared to 45 percent of the male respondents.

As of January 2024, the majority of Google employees worldwide, almost 66 percent, were male. The distribution of male and female employees at Google hasn’t seen a big change over the recent years. In 2014 the share of female employees at Google was 30.6 percent. In 2021 this number has increased by only 3 percent. Considering that the total number of Google employees increased greatly between the years 2007 and 2020, the female quota among the employees had seen rather a small increase. Google as a company Google is a diverse internet company that provides a wide range of digital products and services. In 2022, the company’s global revenue was over 279 billion U.S. dollars. Most of its revenue, around 305 billion U.S. dollars, was from advertising. Among its services, the most popular ones are YouTube and Google Play. Male and female employees at tech companies Google is not the only tech company with a lower number of female employees. This pattern can be seen in other big tech companies too. In 2019, in a ranking of 20 leading tech companies worldwide, only 23andMe had more than a 50 percent share of female employees. The majority of tech companies in the ranking have far more male than female employees.

The global gender gap index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education, and health-based criteria. In 2024, the country offering most gender equal conditions was Iceland with a score of 0.94. Overall, the Nordic countries make up four of the five most gender equal countries in the world. The Nordic countries are known for their high levels of gender equality, including high female employment rates and evenly divided parental leave. Sudan is the least gender equal country Sudan is found on the other end of the scale, ranked as the least gender equal country in the world. Conditions for civilians in the North African country has worsened significantly after a civil war broke out in April 2023. Especially girls and women are suffering and have become victims of sexual violence. Moreover, nearly nine million people are estimated to be at acute risk of famine. The Middle East and North Africa has the largest gender gap Looking at the different world regions, the Middle East and North Africa has the largest gender gap as of 2023, just ahead of South Asia. Moreover, it is estimated that it will take another 152 years before the gender gap in the Middle East and North Africa is closed. On the other hand, Europe has the lowest gender gap in the world.

As of June 2022, 37.1 percent of worldwide Meta employees were women, an increase of 0.5 percent in the previous year. Overall, almost 63 percent of the company were men. The company has reported diversity metrics since 2014, and whilst the share of women employed by the company has increased, men continue to account for the overall majority. Moreover, Meta have reported that women were more likely to accept remote job offers.

In 2024, the share of female Google employees worldwide in leadership positions amounted to 32.8 percent. The majority of leadership employees were men. Overall, about two thirds of Google employees worldwide were male.

Over the past decades, more and more women have entered the labor market around the world. Today, over 40 percent of the global workforce are women. However, only one third are in senior roles, and less than 30 percent work within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Global Gender Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education, and health-based criteria. In 2024, the leading country was Iceland .

As of June 2022, only 37.1 percent of all global Meta Platforms employees were women. The majority of employees were male. Overall, women made up 25.8 percent of tech roles and 60.5 percent of non-tech roles.

According to a study on gender parity indicators worldwide, progress towards gender parity in work life has been marginal over the past years. The indicators have been aggregated into a Gender Parity Score, ranging from zero (no gender equality) to one (full gender equality). In both 2014 and 2019, the labor-force participation rate remained at 0.64. The most progress was made for females in professional and technical jobs where the ratio scored 0.73 in 2019.

As of December 2021, 59.9 percent of leadership roles and 67.1 percent of technical roles at Twitter were held by men. Overall, women accounted for 44.7 percent of all Twitter employees. Across all roles, roughly one percent of employees identified as non-binary or non-conforming.

Ridesharing platform, Uber has been increasing the gender diversity of its workforce, which was 56.5 percent male and 43.5 percent female as of 31 December 2023. The above figures only refer to staff that are employed directly by Uber, and do not include drivers.

In 2023, Netflix reportedly had an almost equal share of male and female employees working for the company worldwide. The employees were reported as 51.6 percent female and 45.8 percent male, with 1.4 percent recorded as additional gender identities.

Employment-to-population among youth worldwide was significantly higher among men than women between 2000 and 2023. In 2023, more than 40 percent of young men were employed, compared to less than 30 percent of young women, reflecting the fact that women are still underrepresented in working life around the world, and that girls often have to help out in the household when boys are sent to school.

As of December 2022, a total 46.7 percent of leadership roles at Etsy were filled by women. In comparison, 47.7 percent of Etsy's tech employees were men. The remaining percentage points are made up by additional genders and employees who did not declare their gender.

In the most recently measured period, almost 45 percent of all global Twitter employees were women. Additionally, for technical roles, 30.9 percent were women, and in leadership roles, 39 percent were women. Overall, less than one percent of employees at Twitter identified as non-binary or non-conforming.

In 2024, around 70.1 percent of Zoom's global workforce was male, with only 29 percent being female. In total, the company employed over 7200 workers worldwide, with the majority of these being employed across the Americas.

PayPal's global workforce remained relatively unchanged between 2017 and 2023 when it comes to gender diversity. Most employees were male, with about four out of six employees being women. Since 2020, PayPal also shares how many non-binary employees it has. By 2021, these made up 0.04 percent within the total number of PayPal employees worldwide.

In 2023, 47.3 percent of global employees working for LinkedIn identified as women, and 0.8 percent of employees chose not to disclose their gender. Overall, 51.9 percent of LinkedIn employees were men, down from 52.1 percent in 2022. There were an estimated 19.4 thousand people working for LinkedIn in 2023.

In 2023, 61.8 percent of BuzzFeed employees worldwide were women, against 38.2 percent of their male counterparts.