UNESCO Institute for Statistics
P.O. Box 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada
Tel: (1 514) 343-6880 / Fax: (1 514) 343-5740 / Email: [email protected]
February 2010
Information Sheet No. 4
SEX-DISAGGREGATED DATA:
A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF KEY EDUCATION AND SCIENCE INDICATORS
SINCE THE BEIJING DECLARATION AND PLATFORM FOR ACTION (1995)
Introduction
To coincide with the 15
th
anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,
the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) conducted an analysis of sex disaggregated
education and science indicators to provide insight on the overall progress for achieving
equality for women and girls. The UIS collects sex-disaggregated data from pre-primary
to tertiary levels of education related to access, participation, progression, completion,
student mobility and fields of education. The full UIS database can be accessed at:
http://stats.uis.unesco.org.
While the UIS collects data on several indicators disaggregated by sex, this information
sheet presents a broad picture of international progress in terms of gender targets for
school participation, adult literacy and women in science as a contribution to UNESCO’s
online discussion on Strategic Objective B, “Education and Training of Women”, that was
held from 10 January to 7 February 2010 as part of the Beijing+15 Review process.
Regional averages are compared as the main method of analysis; however, country-
level data are also used to shed light within regions. A more in-depth analysis of sex-
disaggregated indicators will be presented in the upcoming 2010 edition of the UIS
Global Education Digest (GED).
Primary education
As shown in Table 1, gross enrolment ratios (GERs) have increased from 1995 onwards
in the Arab States, Central Asia, South and West Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa,
demonstrating progress in school participation at the primary level. Moreover, the gender
parity index (GPI) has also increased over the three reference years (i.e. the higher
enrolment rates are increasingly made up of females). Despite this increase, however,
GPI figures show that much gender disparity still exists in these regions.
The largest reduction in gender disparity between the years 1995 and 2007 occurred in
South and West Asia (GPI increased from 0.8 to 0.96). This was largely driven by
changes in India, which is approaching gender parity in terms of enrolment (0.97 in
2007 – up from 0.81 in 1995), and Pakistan where the GPI increased from 0.56 in 1995
to 0.82 in 2007. In Pakistan, gender disparity favouring boys continues to be significant
at the primary education level.
More than half of countries in sub-Saharan Africa with reported data in 2007 (23/37)
show gender disparities favouring boys (i.e. GPIs under 0.97). In fact, several countries
have a GPI below 0.85 (i.e. there are 85 girls for every 100 boys enrolled), including
Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Mali, Niger and
Somalia. In contrast, many countries in southern Africa have maintained gender parity at
the primary level for sometime, including Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. In
Lesotho, gender disparity once favoured girls but has since moved to a position near
gender parity.
