38 \ Global Youth Development Index and Report 2016 Box 2.2 Gender disparities in youth development In any country, region or YDI category, progress in youth development is not shared equally by all young people, and especially by those among the young who are also women, poor, part of an ethnic, religious or sexual minority, differently abled or just happening to live in rural areas. Paucity of data disaggregated by sex, income status or regional background makes it difficult to measure inequalities in youth development adequately. Nevertheless, many indicators used in the YDI have data published by age and sex, making it possible to glean some insight on the gender disparities within the youth demographic. Of the 18 indicators in the YDI, data in only nine are disaggregated by sex and age. Analysis of these datasets reveals the following: • While middle-income and high-income countries are close to achieving gender parity in secondary school enrolment, serious disparities persist in low-income countries where secondary enrolment rates continue to be skewed towards males despite improvements over the past 15 years. In 2012, there were at least 19 countries with fewer than 90 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in secondary education, of which the majority were in MENA region and Sub-Saharan Africa. Of 183 countries, only 40 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in secondary enrolment as of 2013. Gender disparities widen at the tertiary level where only 4 per cent of countries have achieved parity in enrolment. • Young females in low-income countries are less likely to be digital natives than young males. Additionally, the higher a country’s income and school enrolment levels, the greater very high YDI category on average have almost the same drug abuse rates as those in low and medium YDI categories. While these variations do not necessarily mean that youth in low YDI countries are doing better on these indicators, they nevertheless indicate that countries with higher levels of youth development need to prioritise young people’s mental health and improving access to decent work opportunities in their development agendas and planning. There are very notable differences between low, medium, high and very high YDI categories on • • • • • the proportion of digital natives in its youth population. Although the gender gap in youth literacy is narrowing, an overwhelming majority of illiterate youth in the world, especially in West and Central Africa and South Asia, continue to be female. Three out of five illiterate young persons are females. In some countries, female literacy rates among youth are as low as 15 per cent whereas the lowest male literacy rate in any country is 35 per cent. Young males are more likely than their female counterparts to have an account at a formal financial institution everywhere except in highincome countries. The gender gap is the widest in lower-middle-income countries, where there are 73 female youth for every 100 male youth with an account at a formal financial institution. Young women are on average twice as likely to be NEET as young men. In South Asia, young women are almost four times more likely to be NEET as their male peers. Unemployment levels are up to 10 per cent higher for young women than young men. However, when compared with how youth are doing in relation to older people, the youth-toadult unemployment ratio is worse for males than females in seven out of the nine global regions, with South Asia and the MENA region faring the worst. HIV prevalence rates tend to be higher among young women globally than young men. The HIV prevalence rates are significantly higher for females than males in Sub-Saharan Africa. some indicators. Besides identifying areas that need to be prioritised by countries in the different YDI categories, these variations also signify that it is possible to score well in a couple of indicators and still fall into the low YDI category, and vice versa, to score poorly in a few areas but score very high overall. The ten highest-ranked countries scored worse than the ten lowest-ranked countries for drug abuse and mental disorder, suggesting there is an inverse relationship between these indicators and the overall level of youth development (Figure 2.10).