A snapshot of global gender inequality: Deep divides persist despite gains

Thirty years after 189 countries adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action — the most ambitious plan ever to achieve gender equality — figures show there has been clear progress, but also persistent gaps that could widen as a result of cuts in development aid. This is the main conclusion of the Gender Snapshot 2025, an analysis based on more than 100 data sources, released Monday evening by U.N. Women with a warning: without urgent measures, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality will fall far short of being achieved.

The analysis reveals that inequality between men and women continues across nearly all areas. For example, 64 million more adult women than men suffer from food insecurity, and 9.2% of women and girls (376 million) currently live in extreme poverty, compared with 8.6% of men and boys. Furthermore, in 2024, 46.4% of women of working age were employed, compared with 69.5% of men. Women live longer, but spend more years of their lives in poor health than men (10.9 versus 8). And although the number of female senators and lawmakers is increasing, they still hold only 27.2% of parliamentary seats, while 102 countries have never had a female head of state or government.

“Where gender equality has been prioritized, it has proven to deliver results,” says Sarah Hendriks, deputy executive director for policy at U.N. Women, in a video call with EL PAÍS. “Today, girls are more likely to complete school than at any other time in human history, maternal mortality has fallen by almost 40%, and in just five years, 99 laws were passed or amended to address discrimination.”

However, she continues, “the world is not living up to the ambition of the Beijing Declaration and, in some cases, is even regressing — and that regression is measured in lives, rights, and opportunities.”

One of the greatest advances achieved over these three decades, according to the report, is the improvement in women’s sexual and reproductive health. According to U.N. data, between 2000 and 2023, maternal mortality fell from 328 to 197 deaths per 100,000 live births. Adolescent fertility also declined, dropping from 66.3 to 38.3 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19. However, when considering only the lowest-income countries, the trend is reversed: adolescent births increased from 4.7 million in 2000 to 5.6 million in 2024.

Underrepresentation in decision-making

“The cuts in official development assistance have been the most seismic we’ve seen not just in decades, but in our lifetimes,” warns Hendriks.

According to the report, at the beginning of 2025, more than 60% of women-led HIV organizations lost funding or were forced to suspend services.

“Women comprise 67% of the global health workforce, but face a 24% gender pay gap [it is 23% globally],” states the report by U.N. Women, which argues that women’s “systematic exclusion from leadership roles perpetuates the deprioritization of their health needs.”

This leadership gap also permeates all sectors. “Decision-making remains in men’s hands, in all walks of life, everywhere in the world,” the report states, noting that only 56.3% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 who are married or in a romantic relationship have full decision-making power over their sexual and reproductive health and rights, according to data from 78 countries.

Examples of gender imbalance are numerous. As of January 1, 2025, women held only 27.2% of parliamentary seats and 35.5% of local government positions. As of August 1 of this year, only 29 countries had a woman as head of state or government — 22 more than five years ago. And although women occupy 90% of the positions they would hold in the judiciary under full parity, that share drops to 75% in constitutional and supreme courts. In the business world, women hold 30% of management positions, but at the current pace, gender equality will take nearly a century to achieve, according to U.N. Women.

However, this underrepresentation in leadership contrasts sharply with women’s overrepresentation in unpaid domestic and care work, to which they dedicate 2.5 times more hours per day than men. The figure is even higher in North Africa and Asia, where women spend four times as much time as men on these tasks.

According to U.N. Women, “unequal care responsibilities keep 708 million women outside the labor force globally.” Hendriks adds: “Policies must reflect that half the population are women, and we know that when women lead, the outcomes change for everyone: peace advances, development consolidates, and economies thrive.”

Inequality also manifests in violence and lack of legal protection. More than one in eight women (12.5%) experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner in the past year. Nearly one in five young girls married before the age of 18, and every year four million girls undergo genital mutilation, more than two million of them before the age of five. “We analyzed how conflicts are becoming increasingly deadly for women and girls and found that last year, 676 million of them lived within 50 kilometers [31 miles] of a lethal conflict,” says Hendriks, noting that this is “the highest absolute figure recorded in the last 30 years.”

In the areas of climate justice and peace, the calculations are equally clear. Without action, the U.N. estimates that up to 158 million more women and girls could fall into extreme poverty by 2050 due to the impacts of climate change. In decision-making, studies show that peace processes with significant participation by women are 20% more likely to endure. Hendriks explains: “There is no magic bullet, but rather a package of interventions which, when applied together, multiply the social and economic well-being of societies as a whole.”

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