Graphic detail | Democracy and equality

The Mayoress of Mecca

The relationship between democracy and inequality between the sexes

By The Economist online

The relationship between democracy and inequality between the sexes

ON SEPTEMBER 25th Saudi Arabia, the world's seventh least-democratic country according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company, announced that from 2015 it would allow women to vote and stand in municipal elections. Women have a particularly hard time in Saudi Arabia, which was the last country with some elections to deny women the vote. They must seek permission from a male guardian (often their husband or father, but sometimes their son) before they work, travel and marry, and they are not allowed to drive. Charting the relationship between democracy and the level of inequality between sexes (measured by the UN's gender-inequality index) reveals a strong relationship between the two (an of 46%). But those expecting a woman's lot to improve now some democratic concessions have been made should look at the outliers: in both India and Papua New Guinea, countries with high levels of democracy, inequality between the sexes remains just as marked, suggesting that this relationship is more complicated than it first appears.

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