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The Gender Data Portal is the World Bank Group's comprehensive source for the latest sex-disaggregated data and gender statistics. Gender refers to the social, behavioral, and cultural attributes, expectations, and norms associated with being male or female. Gender equality refers to how these factors determine the way in which women and men relate to each other and to the resulting differences in power between them. Data throughout the site are displayed by sex (male and female), which follows the current international standard for statistics.

The site was developed by the World Bank's Gender Group and the Development Economics Data Group (DECDG). The database is updated at least four times a year (April, July, September, and December). Please contact us for data questions and feedback.

Quick tips for navigating

Explore

1. If you're not sure where to start and you're not familiar with gender data, explore by reading the data stories or accessing economy, region, or topic profiles. These pages highlight gender gaps through pre-selected visualizations accompanied by narrative to help contextualize the data shown. Economy and region profiles (for example Nigeria and East Asia and the Pacific) give you a snapshot of gender equality across key indicators for that geographical location. Topic profiles visualize key indicators within the topic and list all indicators available within that topic on the Gender Data Portal.

To learn more about the data for the visualizations (source, definition, methodology, etc.), click on the "Source" button below the visualization. To explore that particular indicator further or compare the selected economy with other economies of interest, click the "Compare economies" button below the visualization. The profiles can be downloaded as PDFs to attach to reports or send to colleagues. The data can also be downloaded as a CSV file, which can be opened using Microsoft Excel or imported into a statistical or programming software application.

2. You may also want to explore the free courses on data literacy, communications, and visualization at the bottom of this page.

3. If you're familiar with gender data, but unsure of the specific indicator name, you can review the full list of available indicators in the Gender Data Portal on the All indicators page.

Search

If you already know what data you need, use the search function in the blue navigation bar to type in an indicator, region, or economy. Related indicators will appear while you refine your search. You can also download the full dataset in CSV or Excel format directly from the home page above the highlight boxes. You can also easily browse the topics and economies on the blue navigation bar at the top. The topics are also accessible from the home page via the "Topics" highlight box. More advanced users may want to review the "Access to APIs" section on this page for details on how to access the data using statistical and programming software applications like R, Stata, and Python.

Use the Data

You can access and visualize data on the indicator pages in four main views: map, trend, bar, and scatterplot (for example literacy rate). For a detailed walk-through of the indicator pages click the "Tour the page" button in the top right corner. Use the filters on the right hand side to disaggregate the data (i.e. by sex, age, level of education, location, occupation, etc.).
The "choose economies" button allows you to compare individual economies and aggregates or view all economies within a region or income group at once. Sources, definitions and other metadata can be found on the details tab next to the filters tab.
Data for all indicators on the page can be downloaded as a CSV file. The visualization can be downloaded as PNG or PDF files to be added into a PowerPoint or shared via email or social media channels.
The data table below the visulaization updates each time you change the economies, filters, years, or view. Your exact selection in the table can be downloaded by clicking on "Download the selected input".

Ways to access and cite data from the Portal

Download CSV files

Data across the Gender Data Portal are available for download as CSV files. Given the large size of many of the Portal’s data files, CSVs allow for faster download and smaller file sizes when compared to Excel files. CSVs allow users to open the file in their preferred platform, including both text editors and spreadsheet programs. Newer versions of Microsoft Excel should open CSV files automatically. For versions Microsoft 2016 and earlier please use the Microsoft Office instructions.

Users can download the full dataset from the homepage just under the search bar. On indicator pages, users can download data for all indicators within the indicator group for all economies and aggregate values. On economy profiles, users can download data for the selected economy. On region profiles, users can download data for all economies within the selected region as well as regional aggregate values. On topic profiles, users can download data for all indicators within that topic.

Access to DataBank

From any indicator, economy, region, or topic page, users may access the DataBank, which allows for more in-depth exploration of the indicators.

Access through APIs

For more advanced users, from any indicator, economy, region, or topic page, users may access data via the World Bank Indicators API endpoint link. The API documentation explains the call structures for the Indicators API in detail. The API includes data from all World Bank databases, so users must specify source 14 to call data for only the Gender Data Portal. This same data can easily be accessed using statistical and programming software applications, such as the three highlighted below.

Python (wbgapi package)

This package pulls data from all World Bank databases. Users can specify the Gender database (14) which includes all data from the Gender Data Portal. Some data and metadata are available in other languages.

R (wbstats package)

This package pulls data from all World Bank databases. Users cannot specify the Gender database, but can obtain data by searching the indicator name or specifying the indicator code. Some data and metadata are available in other languages.

Stata (wbopendata module)

This module pulls only data from the World Development Indicators database. Therefore the gender topic (17 - Gender) only includes a subset of the full list of indicators in the Gender Data Portal. It is best to specify the indicator code rather than search within the Gender topic as some of the sex-disaggregated indicators may show up in other topics like education or population for example. Data and metadata are available in multiple languages.

Stata automatically includes regions and income groups after selecting data, while R and Python require users to merge/join the region and income group data to the indicator data frame. R is used for data visualizations as well as statistical analyses, while Stata is usually for the latter.

Cite data from the Portal

When citing data from the Gender Data Portal, include the original source name from the metadata followed by the phrase "Data retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal". See example below:
"Source: International Labour Organization (ILO). Data retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal."