Inequality and unequal access to education holds millions of girls and women back across the world. While the “gender gap” in education has narrowed over the past decade, girls are still at a disadvantage, particularly in getting access to high school education. And women still constitute two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population.
This gender gap is generally wider at higher levels of schooling. According to some estimates, women in South Asia, for example, have only half as many years of education as men, and female enrollment rates at the high-school level are two-thirds that of males.
Gender disparity is greater among the poor, and in some countries the disparity continues among the poor even after they have disappeared among the wealthier sectors of the population.
