2012 World Bank report on gender equality finds women are still oppressed

The World Bank has released its 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development, which has a lot of really interesting findings about the state of women in the world today across a broad range of areas, including education, health, and work. But while it reports that things have improved for women in a variety of areas (like education access), there are tons of gaps that still exist which inhibit women from opportunities to live full and healthy lives, particularly in low-income countries.

Some of the findings that were stressed were around economic disparities, the wage gap and mortality rates — a few tidbits:

• Women represent 40% of the world’s labor force but hold just 1% of the world’s wealth
• There are 3.9 million “missing” women and girls under 60 years old every year in developing countries
• Over a third of women die in their reproductive years

They have an awesome interactive page that provides stats, maps, graphs and a ton of information around their findings. (You can also download full text here.) Where I find this report may be of the most value is the accompanying recommended policy actions to improve these gaps — let’s hope they’re put to good use.