From: here

Canada is leading the G20 pack when it comes to the best country to be a woman, but there´s a huge disparity between the best and the worst countries in terms of health care, equality and ending gender-based violence.

A recent poll conducted by TrustLaw, a legal news service by Thomson Reuters Foundation, found Canada to be the best G20 country for women, while India ranked the worst.

Countries From Best To Worst:

1. Canada
In Canada, 62 per cent of university graduates in 2008 were women.

2. Germany
In Germany, 83 years of age is the average life expectancy for women.

3. Britain
In the United Kingdom, 22.3 per cent of judges are women.

4. Australia
Almost 36 per cent of parliamentary seats in Australia are held by women.

5. France
In France, new moms get 16 weeks of full paid maternity leave.

6. United States
At least 60 per cent of masters degrees earned in 2008 were by women.

7. Japan
The average life expectancy of women in Japan is 87.

8. Italy
In Italy, 57.7 per cent of students enrolled in tertiary education are female.

9. Argentina
Moms in Argentina get 90 days of full paid maternity leave.

10. South Korea
In South Korea, 6 out of 10 men say they have more of a right to work when jobs are scarce.

11. Brazil
At least 250, 000 children are believed to be involved in prostitution.

12. Turkey
In Turkey, 3.8 million women are illiterate.

They are kiiled by their ex-husbands if they attempt to start a new life with somebody else.

They are forced to marry guys who they don´t want to.

They are sold by their fathers for marriage in some parts of the country.

13. Russia
At least 14, 000 women die every year from domestic violence in Russia.

14. China
In 2008, 1.09 million girls were dead or "missing" at birth due to infanticide.

15. Mexico
In Mexico, 1 out of 4 women experience sexual abuse by a partner.

16. South Africa
In South Africa, 42.3 per cent of seats held in politics are by women.

17. Indonesia
At least 90 per cent of women claim to be sexually assaulted in the workplace.

18. Saudi Arabia
Women in Saudi Arabia were given the right to vote in 2011.

19. India
Almost 45 per cent of girls in India are married before they turn 18.

Some of the things that women face daily are so atrocious, it´s hard to believe. And while we mention them in relation to the obvious culprits, they happen even in the countries that do well in the rankings.

"In India, women and girls continue to be sold as chattels, married off as young as 10, burned alive as a result of dowry-related disputes and young girls exploited and abused as domestic slave labour," says Gulshun Rehman, health program development adviser at Save the UK, told Reuters.

Thank you for this post si++.

women in Canada after giving birth have up to a year of paid maternity leave, wish other women around the world had at least a fraction of what we have here.

Women in Serbia also have a year of paid maternity leave after giving birth for first two children, and two years for the third child. Plus social support depending of how many children they have. But... It is pretty difficult to get a job if you are a woman: if you´re not married, or married and don´t have children yet, they suppose you will get married, have children and go to maternity leave; if you have small chldren, they suppose they will get ill and you will again get to leave; if you have grown up children or can´t have children anymore - you´re too old; if you´re not married in your later years - somthing must be wrong with you... and so on, and so on... No employer wants a worker who is supposed to be absent from work every now and then

Actually, I wouldn´t want a year materity leave. In Holland it´s a few months, and that´s enough for me. However, I think man should also get more paternity leave, and not just 1 week! That way they get more involved with the kids, and the idea that BOTH parents are responsible for the kids (not only the women) gets more accepted in society. That would take a part of the double burden from the women.

The poll was held amongst legal experts, the source of the article is here: http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/poll-canada-best-g20-country-to-be-a-woman-india-worst/

It actually says nothing about Turkey besides its position on the ranking.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/13/best-and-worst-g20-countries-for-women_n_1593942.html#s=1091775

go in this link and in the slide show you will see the details they put for each country

There you go, terrible consequences for women... pushes them further into the unpaid work, at the mercy of men, category. Such long maternity leaves are not good at all. Not only a woman loses all the skills she had, completely removes her from teh work force, she loses the work experience. These women are started on the path of dividing responsibilities at home in such a way that the women are financially dependent on their husbands (and we know that domestic violence rates are doubled among unemployed women). It also removes dads from children´s lives, which has far reaching social consequences.

I think that the best solution is to divide the parental leave equally between both parents (when there are 2 parents). That way, women aren´t singled out as parents and hence won´t be discriminated against on the job market. I think only Sweden has done that though (because there´s a lot of female Parliment members in Sweden).

In the US, there´s no requirement to provide parents parental leave. Usually the mother gets 1-2 months at reduces salary (depends on employer, but it´s rare to get more) and fathers get 1 week!!! This is why a lot of women, especially lower income women, who cannot afford daycare/nany, choose to not work or work part time. And that again puts women in a socially disadvantaged position.

the countries that have long maternity leave also have clauses for the father, that is why it is called parental leave.

the parents can split the leave in half so both of them can be with the child, in other words the mother can take 6 months and so can the father making it a total of 1 year between the two.

Also by that law:

At the end of the maternity leave, the employer must reinstate the employee in her former position and give her the wages and the benefits to which she would have been entitled had she remained at work.

If her position has been abolished, the employee retains the same rights and privileges that she would have enjoyed had she remained at work.

I think it is much better then the 40 days that used to be given in the past.