Last Sunday was International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world since the early 1900s. The depressing headline this year was nearly 2 billion women worldwide are still struggling or suffering.
Gallup, the famous pollster, took the opportunity to release a new study that shows there has been little improvement in the lives of a majority of women worldwide since Gallup’s first study on the subject in 2006.
Gallup asked women in more than 160 countries about their lives and found that 13 percent are suffering and another 61 percent say they are struggling. Only 26 percent of all women in the world say they are thriving. People are considered thriving if they rate their current lives a 7 out of 10 and their lives in five years an 8 or higher.
Since the initial study in 2006, there has been virtually no improvement in any of the categories measured.
Gallup says the highest percentage of women who are thriving tend to be primarily from wealthy, developed countries. Iceland and Sweden have the highest percentages of women doing well in the world.
Iceland is on top of the world, literally and figuratively. Over three-fourths of women in that country say they are thriving. In Sweden, 74 percent of women are thriving, which is partially attributable to the highest employment rate for women in the world.
Denmark is third with 68 percent, followed by Canada, Finland, Australia, U.S., Austria, Costa Rica and New Zealand to round out the top 10.
Countries experiencing instability populated the top 10 nations where women are suffering most.
The women of Bulgaria win the dubious honor of suffering the most. In that country, 43 percent of women in Gallup’s study say they are suffering. Afghanistan was not far behind with 40 percent of its women suffering, followed by Armenia, Greece, Ukraine, Cambodia, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt and Madagascar.
Thankfully, based on their life evaluations, less than 30 percent of women worldwide say they experienced a lot of negative emotions, such as stress, sadness, physical pain, worry and anger.
Women in Latin America are the most likely to say they had daily positive experiences, which include being treated with respect, having a lot of enjoyment, smiling and laughing a lot, feeling well-rested and learning or doing something interesting.
