Drops of Knowledge – Discovering Black Sea Facts & Figures
International Women's Day│Facts from the Black Sea region
7 March 2025
On 8 March 2025, International Women’s Day is celebrated under “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”
Furthermore, the year 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, widely regarded as “the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s and girls’ rights.”
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day (8 March), the infographic includes data from the 13 BSEC countries.
The infographic focuses on the following:
Human Development Reports, Gender Development Index (GDI)
GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development:
- health, measured by female and male life expectancy at birth;
- education, measured by a) female and male expected years of schooling for children and, b) female and male mean years of schooling for adults ages 25 years and older;
- command over economic resources, measured by female and male estimated earned income (Gross National Income per capita).
Human Development Reports, Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI)
GSNI assesses the impact of social beliefs on gender equality across four key dimensions, including political, educational, economic, and physical integrity. Each dimension is characterized by one or two indicators of biases against women:
- Political: a) Women having the same rights as men is essential for democracy, b) Men make better political leaders than women do.
- Educational: University is more important for men than for women.
- Economic: a) Men should have more right to a job than women, b) Men make better business executives than women do.
- Physical integrity: a) Proxy for intimate partner violence, b) Proxy for reproductive rights.
HIGHLIGHTS
In 2022, women in 10 out of the 13 BSEC countries earned at least 5,000 (2017 PPP$) less than men.
The Republic of Moldova has the lowest gender pay gap, with the difference of earned income being at 1,453 (2017 PPP$). In contrast, Türkiye has the highest gender pay gap, at 24,539 (2017 PPP$).
As for the impact of social beliefs in the BSEC countries, about 9 out of 10 people hold biases against women.
Azerbaijan ranks first, with 98.7% of people having at least one bias. In particular, 8 out of 10 and 9 out of 10 people in the country have at least one bias regarding the political and economic dimension, respectively.
Türkiye has the highest share of people with at least one bias in the educational dimension (32.68%), while Georgia has the highest share in the physical integrity dimension (76.32%).
Greece is the country with the lowest percentage of people with bias in the wider Black Sea region, at 64%. It also has the lowest percentages in the political (29.34%), educational (7.86%), and physical integrity (30.56%) dimensions.
With regard to the lowest percentage in the economic dimension, this is observed in Serbia (30.57%).
Sources:
UNDP, Gender Development Index (GDI), https://hdr.undp.org/gender-development-index#/indicies/GDI
UNDP, Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI), https://hdr.undp.org/content/2023-gender-social-norms-index-gsni#/indicies/GSNI
All last accessed on 25 February 2025.
