The Asia-Pacific region comprises East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania. Being home to around
, the lived realities of women across the APAC region differ greatly across sectors like education, employment, family planning, and politics. Both East Asia and the Pacific as well as South Asia rank in the lower half of global regions in terms of gender parity, with South Asia having the second largest
.
Education – the groundwork toward equality
Inequalities across the Asia-Pacific region start as early as in the
primary and secondary education sector, with the duration of compulsory education alone ranging from as low as five years in some of the region’s countries to up to twelve in others. Despite this, high adult illiteracy rates, particularly in South Asia, show that many children are shut out of the education system entirely. In a majority of South and Southeast Asian countries, women make up the highest
share of the illiterate population. However, positive steps toward gender equality in education have been made in recent years, particularly beyond primary school age, as
female and male enrollment rates for secondary education have increasingly aligned. In these higher levels of education, female enrollment even surpasses that of male students in a majority of countries.
Labor force participation and shifting attitudes toward parenthood
Concomitant with higher educational equity,
female labor force participation rates across the Asia-Pacific region are also on the rise, a development that also has spill-over effects on shifting family models in the region. In many countries, women were and are still expected to take on most domestic tasks. Indian women between the ages of 15 and 59 spent on average
more than five hours daily on unpaid work in 2022, with men in the same age group spending around an hour on unpaid chores in the same year. A connection between labor force participation and shifting family models can particularly be observed in East Asian countries and territories with high female labor force participation rates; Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan boast the lowest
birth rates across the APAC region.
Political participation as a main driver toward gender equality
In order to drive gender parity forward, many countries worldwide are striving for higher proportions of women in management positions and political key roles. However, no country in the Asia-Pacific region has reached full gender equality in its respective parliament yet. As of 2023, New Zealand was the region’s leading country regarding
parliament seats held by women, at over 44 percent, followed by Australia and Timor-Leste. In contrast, economic powerhouses like Malaysia and Japan had shares of around 13.5 and ten percent, respectively. Political participation, especially in parliamentary positions, can be seen as one of the most significant contributors to gender equality, as New Zealand is the highest-ranking APAC country on the
global gender gap index. Despite the progress made towards more gender equality in many APAC countries in recent years, the gender gap in the region remains one of the biggest in the world, with the gap in South Asia being trailed only by that in the Middle East and North Africa.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no
liability for the information given being complete or correct.
Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
data than referenced in the text.
