International Day of Women and Girls in Science

  This factsheet provides an update on the findings from the UNESCO publication: The Gender Gap in Science: Status and Trends (2024), offering a more detailed picture of where women are training and working in science. It draws on disaggregated data across sectors—public, private, higher education.

  The UNESCO’s Call to Action to Close the GenderGap in Science , launched in February 2024, invites bold steps to remove systemic barriers and accelerate gender equality in science. The Call outlines priority actions for dismantling gender stereotypes and biases in science , opening educational pathways for girls in science and creating workplace environments that attract, retain and advance women scientists . This factsheet is part of a growing knowledge base to support the Call’s implementation.  Readers are encouraged to explore the tools, guidance and examples of good practice or to join one of UNESCO’s global Working Groups:

   Assessments demand data. Between 2012 and 2022, 131 countries reported the share of women researchers in national science, technology and innovation systems . Fewer than 90 countries report on the share of women among researchers each year—less than half of all countries (Figure 12). Although reporting had increased to 78 countries on average reporting annually between 2007 and 2018, fewer than 66 countries have reported each year since 2019. Since 1996, 49 countries have never reported internationally comparable data on women’s representation in their scientific workforce. A total of 163 countries have reported on their overall scientific workforce at least once since 1996, yet only 131 countries have reported on the representation of women in science since 2012 and 103 countries since 2018. More than half of countries in the Asia-Pacific region (see Figure 10) and over one-third of countries in the Americas and Caribbean (see Figure 8) have not reported data regarding wo...

Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for 17 of the 19 Arab States. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025

  Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for 23 of the 44 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025

Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for 37 of the 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025.

  Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for 16 of 22 countries in Latin America and 5 of 13 countries in the Caribbean. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025

  Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for all of the 25 countries in Eastern Europe. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025

Female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (head counts), 2013 and 2023 or latest year available. Notes: Since 1996, data are available for 21 of the 22 countries in Western Europe. No internationally comparable data are available for North American countries. *Data predate 2019; x Data predate 2014. Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, March 2025

  The year 2025 marks a dual milestone: 50 years of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme and 60 years of UNESCO’scommitment to water sciences . These anniversaries offer an opportunity to reflectnot only on scientific progress but also onwho has contributed to that progress—andwho has been left out . Despite the increasing relevance of gender in water management and policy , past and contemporary research is largely missing information about impact on women, the contributions of women or gender considerations for the interfaces of society and water.  A bibliometric study found that out of thousands of scientific articles published in water-related disciplines , fewer than 100 mentioned both gender, or women, and hydrology . In 2022, nine of the top 21 hydrology journals published no articles referencing gender, while the remainder published between one and This absence in the literature or data does not reflect an absence of women in the field of water sciences . On ...

  To close the gender gap in science , tracking overall participation needs to be supplemented by an understanding of which areas of science women are contributing to and leading in , as well as those from which they remain underrepresented. The business sector continues to show the lowest gender balance across the science and innovation ecosystem , with a global median of 29.8% (Figure 4). Women are underrepresented in the private sector research workforce in 82 of 95 countries with data for this sector (86%; Table 1). There is substantial variation, with national shares ranging from negligible levels in some countries to a high of 59% in Botswana (Figure 4). Just eight countries have an equitable proportion of women working as researchers in the business sector , namely Algeria (53.8%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (54.7%), Kazakhstan (53.1%), Kyrgyzstan (53.4%), Mongolia (50%), Mozambique (50%), Namibia (45%) and Uruguay (48.5%). Women are slightly overrepresented in Bolivia (5...

  Women continue to account for a minority of the world’s researchers, forming approximately one third: Women represented 31.1% of researchers worldwide in 2022. This estimate uses the most recent values submitted by countries to the unique time series built by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) since 1996 (Figure 3).3 Global participation of women in the research profession has shown only slight progress over the past decade (2012– 2022), increasing from 29.4% to 31.1%. The  Ongoing efforts to increase gender equity in science have hardly shifted the global value, yet significant disparities remain at national level. Regional differences are striking.5 Parity6 has been reached in Central Asia and in the Latin American and Caribbean region. South and West Asia shows the most impressive growth in the share of women among researchers, from 18.9% in 2012 to 26.9% in 2022, with changes of five percentage points or less in the other regions. The East Asia and Pacific r...

  Participation in tertiary education has been on the rise around the world. As described by UNESCO, “In most countries with available data, women considerably outnumber men in higher education (Figure 1), with 46% of women and 40% of men enrolling in advanced studies within five years of completing their secondary education . Across all regions, gender gaps in enrolment remained stable during the period 2010 to 2022. In most regions, except for subSaharan Africa, the gap is in favour of women. In Europe and Northern America, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania, the gross enrolment ratio for women is at least 20 percentage points higher than that for men.”  However, women are less likely to choose science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. In 2018– 2023, the global share of STEM graduates who were women was 35%, with variation among countries from 12.6% to 66.7% (Figure 2). In 112 of the 135 countries with data, less than 20% of women gradu...

  To mark the 10-year anniversary of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science , UNESCO launches the campaign " Imagine a world with more women in science " on 11 February 2025, supported by Canada’s International Development Centre (IDRC) . This campaign demonstrates the essential role women play in driving progress in science and calls on the global community to not only envision, but also work towards, a more gender-balanced scientific community where every voice is heard. “Under the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024–2033) , imagining a world with more women in science is not just an aspiration, but a call to action to create solutions that leave no one behind." – Lidia Brito, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, UNESCO. Drawing on the momentum of the UNESCO Call to Action Closing the Gender Gap in Science , unveiled during the 2024 celebration of this International Day, this campaign highlights the positi...