Introduction: The Current Situation and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), What Has Been Achieved?
Women in the developing world are the ones that suffer the most from poverty, poor health, lack of education, unequal rights, and violence. Remarkable progress has been made in some areas, aided by some of the MDGs, but there is still a long way to go. This chapter reviews the goals and targets relating to gender equality in the UN High Level Panel's (HLP's) “A New Global Partnership” and makes recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda.
Education
The third MDG was specially targeted to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women. The main target of this goal was to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education. The gender gaps in primary school attendance have been reduced, but access to secondary and university-level education still remains highly unequal.
Figures 19.1, 19.2, and 19.3 plot the female-tomale ratio in enrollments corresponding in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Differences in enrollment in primary education have decreased in all regions, but sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa are still lagging behind. The picture for enrollment in secondary education is not that positive, differences have been reduced somewhat but at a lower speed, and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are regions that are falling behind. In regard to tertiary education, the reduction in inequality has been very minor everywhere.
Employment
The first MDG includes the target of achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people. According to UN estimates, due to the global financial crisis, both male and female labor force participation rates decreased slightly between 2000 and 2012 (73.8 to 72.7 percent and 48.6 to 47.9 percent, respectively). Figure 19.4 shows the female-to-male labor force participation rates by region between 1989 and 2011. From the graph, it looks like the gender disparity has not decreased much, and disparities are still large in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.