DID YOU KNOW? Facts and statistics from National Council for Research on Women

In 2000 U.S. women’s median weekly earnings fell to 76% of men’s median earnings from a high of 81% in the mid 1990’s.

Median earnings for women who have never been married are 91.3% of the salaries earned by their male counterparts,
while the median salaries of married women account for only 70.3% of their male counterparts’ earnings.

In 2002, women will hold at least 11% of the seats in the loya jirga, the assembly assigned to elect the members of the
Afghanistan’s next government. Women currently hold 14% of congressional seats in the United States.
In Sweden, women hold 43% of parliamentary seats.

Nearly two-thirds of illiterate people in the world are women, and the populations with the widest gender gaps in
education and literacy -- South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa -- are also among the fastest growing.

Worldwide estimates for the number of people who are illegally trafficked range from 700,000 to 4 million each year.
Women and girls comprise the vast majority of them.

In 1998, women accounted for 30% of all new HIV infections in the United States.
Half of the newly infected were below the age of 25.

Women account for just over 1% of Fortune 1000 chief executives in the United States and 16% of college and
university presidents. 11% of Fortune 1000 Boards seats are held by women, as are 26% of the Board seats of independent
colleges and universities.

In 1966 2.5 million US women attended college. In 1975 three years after Title IX of the Education Amendments Act,
the number of women in college doubled to five million. In 1979 women college students outnumbered men for the first
time in US history, and by 1996 women accounted for 56% of undergraduates.

In 1969 not a single women’s studies program existed in the United States; today there are over 650 formal programs and
almost every college campus offers at least one course.

In the United States, since the passage of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, reported intimate partner violence has
decreased by over 20%. The rate however, is still too high as 1 in every 3 women will experience some form of violence in her lifetime.