So much progress, but the fight for equality continues

As International Women’s Day is marked around the world, The Independent crunches the numbers on women’s lives

- ALICJA HAGOPIAN

Women around the world are still facing considerable inequality when it comes to pay, jobs, household work and access to healthcare, figures analysed by The Independent reveal.

As International Women’s Day is marked more than 100 years after it was first celebrated in 1911, this publication takes a deeper look at the progress made toward worldwide equality.

To celebrate the day, Women 2025 – The Influence List, TheIndependent has chosen to highlight 50 influential women who are changing British lives, several of whom have had to battle against sexism and discrimination to achieve their success.

From judges to politicians, sports champions to artists and influencers, the list focuses on the women who are making change happen.

In many ways, women in the UK have seen huge strides towards gender equality, with salaries and representation at executive level improving over the past few decades.

But persistent problems remain, with women still not receiving equal pay, and some advancements obscuring deeper gender inequalities. In the UK, women still earn considerably less than men on average, performing worse than other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Women are also still vulnerable to domestic abuse with one in four in the UK experiencing domestic abuse in their lifetime, while one woman is killed every five days.

Internationally, there have been some notable steps backwards with the Taliban suffocating education for women while the US clamps down on abortion.

Here, The Independent looks at the status of gender parity in the UK, and worldwide, spotlighting progress in women’s rights and where more work is needed.

Women in work