The UN, on Thursday, said a widespread global bias against women still persists, in spite of decades of progress toward closing the equality gap.
An analysis by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) found that around half of the world’s population felt that men were better off as political leaders, while over 40 per cent believed that they were better off as business executives.
Meanwhile, nearly 30 per cent believed that it was justified for a man to beat his wife.
UNDP’s analysis measures how social beliefs obstruct gender equality in areas like politics, work and education, and contains data from 75 countries, covering over 80 per cent of the world’s population.
According to UNDP’s Pedro Conceicao, while progress has been made in giving women the same access to life’s basic needs as men, such as education and health, gender gaps are still obvious in areas that challenge power relations.
The analysis showed that only 24 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide were held by women and they make up less than six per cent of Chief Executives in S&P 500 companies.
The states with the highest numbers of people showing any kind of bias against gender equality are Pakistan, Qatar and Nigeria.
According to UNDP, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Andorra, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand have the lowest levels of bias.
UNDP added that attitudes appeared to have worsened in some nations in recent years, with Sweden, Germany, India and Mexico showing the highest levels of deterioration among men.