investment in public services. In much of The patriarchal societies of the South Asia the developing world, initial gains in human region and the Arab states exhibit the greatest development focused on moving people out gaps in overall gender equality in the home, of subsistence farming into wage-earning jobs at the workplace, and for medical care, and and making basic progress on health, educa- this shortfall is likely to continue for the next tion, and gender equality. In middle-income 20 years. Although women are the primary countries, these easier targets have already producers of food globally, they have limited been achieved—infant mortality, for example, or no rights to land ownership in many parts is minimal and almost everyone receives pri- of the world. Subordination of women to men mary education—but complex new challeng- regardless of educational level is enshrined in es, such as pollution and noncommunicable family law in many parts of the Middle East, disease, are arising. Given the rapid expansion South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. According of middle-income households during the past to a 2020 UN review, women held only 25 per- two decades, governments may struggle to cent of seats in national legislatures in 2020— meet the needs and expectations of a more although that is twice the level in 2000—held urbanized, connected, and vastly expanded one quarter of corporate managerial posi- global middle class. tions, and accounted for less than one-tenth of Progress for Women. The world has seen chief executive o昀케cers of major companies. remarkable progress in women’s basic health Improved Childhood Survival and Welfare. and education in recent decades as well as In many countries the past two decades saw an expansion of legal rights in many coun- rapid advances in reducing malnutrition and tries. Birthrates in most developing econo- infant mortality, which is mostly because of mies dropped to less than three children per decreases in preventable communicable dis- woman of child-bearing age by 2020, and ease; there is little room for further dramatic the age of 昀椀rst birth has risen, increasing the improvements on this front. Progress will be opportunities for education and work outside especially slow in areas where con昀氀ict and cri- the home. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to sis are on the rise. In the 1960s, 13 percent of be the greatest outlier on this metric: birth- infants died in the 昀椀rst year of life throughout rates have decreased in recent years but still the developing world; today it averages just averaged 4.9 in 2020 and are likely to remain over 3 percent in the developing world. The high. Maternal mortality has been reduced by region with the greatest continuing challeng- more than one-third during the past 20 years, es is Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5 percent of with South Asia accounting for most of the im- infants die within the 昀椀rst year, in large part provement. Most developing economies have because poverty and communicable disease rapidly reduced the gap in educational attain- rates remain high. ment for girls, although the average number Expanding Access to Education. Educa- of years of education for girls is still only 81 tional attainment is an extremely powerful, percent of the years for boys across Sub-Saha- slow-moving driver of human development, ran Africa, a gap between that region and the with expanding education contributing to rest of the developing world that is unlikely to lifetime expected earnings. Globally, the pro- close during the next two decades. 22 GLOBAL TRENDS 2040