Women hold up half the sky. This is an old Chinese saying. However, research shows that perhaps women do more than their share of “holding up the sky”.

Fifty percent of the world’s population are women, but nearly two-thirds of all working hours are done by women. They do most of the domestic work like cooking and washing clothes. Millions also work outside the home. Women hold forty percent of all the world’s jobs. For this work, they earn only 40 to 60 percent as much as men, and of course they earn nothing for their domestic work.

In developing countries, where three-fourths of the world’s population lives, women produce more than half of the food. In Africa, 80 percent of all agricultural work is done by women.

In parts of Africa, this is a typical day for a village woman. At 4.45 am, she gets up, washes, and eats. It takes her half an hour to walk to the fields, and she works there until 3.00 pm. She collects firewood until 4.00 pm then comes back home. She spends the next hour and a half preparing food to cook. Then she collects water for another hour. From 6.30 to 8.30 she cooks. After dinner, she spends an hour washing the dishes. She then goes to bed at 9.30 pm.