Women's History Month: This is how girls' lives have changed in the past 30 years

Progress towards closing the global gender gap is moving too slowly. In 2024, the gap was 68.6% closed – up only 0.1% from the year before, according to the World Economic Forum’s annual report tracking the advancement of women and girls in society.

As we mark Women’s History Month, it's clear that the world still has a long way to go toward full gender parity in all areas of life. Another 134 years, to be precise – considerably more than the five years left to reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality.

Girls are particularly affected by the impact of these disparities. A new report from UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women explores how girls’ lives and opportunities have evolved over the past 30 years.

“Girl goals: What has changed for girls? Adolescent girls’ rights over 30 years” marks the anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which laid the foundations for advancing women’s and girls’ rights in 1995.

It highlights that millions of adolescent girls and young women continue to be out of school, face gaps in health services and are exposed to violence and abuse.

Between 2000 and 2023, the number of girls out of school decreased by 39%. Today, more boys (128 million) than girls (122 million) are not in education, compared to 2000, when significantly more girls were out of school. Moreover, girls now outperform boys at all levels when it comes to completing their education.

Even so, stark differences remain, putting girls and young women at a disadvantage

While illiteracy has halved since the Beijing Declaration among adolescent girls and young women, there are still 50 million unable to read and write – compared to 39 million boys. Substantial progress has been made around the globe, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, which now has more illiterate girls and young women than in 1995.

Adolescent girls and young women are also still twice as likely not to be in education, employment or training (NEETs) globally compared to boys. In some regions, like South Asia, the discrepancies are even more stark, with girls being three times more likely than boys to miss out.

In addition, nine out of 10 girls in low-income countries are not online, hindering their development of digital skills. Boys are twice as likely to have internet access.

And when it comes to further education, close to 40% of adolescent girls and young women do not complete upper secondary school. This percentage increases for girls from rural, poor areas and marginalized communities.

While girls’ life expectancies have risen, a 15-year-old girl from a low-income country can expect to live 12 years less than her peers in high-income countries: 72 compared to 85 years.

Along with a lack of vaccinations for diseases such as human papillomavirus, another factor affecting young women’s health is early childbirth. Today, complications associated with pregnancy and birth lead to around 1 in every 23 deaths in the 15-19 year age group, UNICEF and its partners report.

The number of adolescent girls giving birth has halved over the past 30 years, but close to 12 million are still expected to have babies this year. For younger girls between 10 and 14 years, who face even higher risks, the number stands at 325,000.

The birth rate for girls across both age groups is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A key factor is access to family planning and contraception. While access has improved by 25 percentage points in the last three decades, many girls and young women still miss out. This not only leaves them with unwanted pregnancies but also with the risk of contracting diseases like HIV/AIDS, where adolescent girls account for 7 in 10 infections.

Adding to the health risks they face, adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately affected by gender-based violence and harmful cultural practices.

For countries making some progress towards tackling female genital mutilation (FGM), cases among adolescent girls aged 15–19 have declined by 14 percentage points from a high of 47% in the early 1990s. However, to eradicate the practice by 2030, as stipulated by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it would need to come down 27 times faster.

About four million girls are still subject to the practice each year in the countries where FGM occurs. And with rising birthrates in those countries, the numbers are predicted to go up rather than down.

There has also been progress in lowering the number of teenage marriages for girls over the past 25 years, but around a fifth still marry before they are 18. The most progress has been made in South Asia, where numbers have halved in the past 25 years. It has now been overtaken by Sub-Saharan Africa as the region with the highest levels of child marriage.

Globally, close to a quarter of teenage girls who are married or in partnerships experience violence in these relationships. Sexual violence is a fact of life for 50 million girls around the globe. Over a third of 15 to 19-year-olds of both sexes consider a man hitting his partner as justifiable in certain circumstances.

The UNICEF report concludes that, 30 years after the Beijing Declaration, many girls and young women around the world continue to live in “dire conditions”.

It recommends further advocacy and investment in areas where progress has stalled, such as education, digital skills and training - as well as economic empowerment programmes.

The World Economic Forum supports economic parity for girls and young women as part of its Global Gender Parity Sprint, which brings together businesses, governments, international organizations and civil society to drive action on gender parity.

As part of the Sprint, the Forum’s Gender Parity Accelerators in 17 economies have so far supported more than 1 million women in accessing economic opportunities and are mobilizing resources to address systemic barriers to gender parity.