Closing the gap:Women have made huge progress in the workplace, but still get lower pay and far fewer top jobs than men.

In many emerging markets women remain second-class citizens, lacking basic rights and suffering violence and many kinds of disadvantage. In the rich world most of the battles about legal and political rights have been won, and on the economic front too women have come a long way. It is easy to forget that even in developed countries they arrived in strength in the labour force only a few decades ago. Since 1970 the proportion of women of working age who have paid jobs across the rich world has risen from 48% to 64%. There are large variations from country to country: in parts of southern and eastern Europe only about half of them go out to work, whereas in most of the Nordic countries well over 70% have jobs, close to the figure for men. In America for a while early last year more women were working than men—until the recession caught up with them. But the broad trend in most countries is still slightly upwards.

link:http://www.economist.com/node/21539928