People across the West tend to think there is more to be done on women’s rights domestically

Connor IbbetsonData Journalist
February 18, 2022, 11:50 AM GMT+0

Those in Britain and the United States are the least likely to think so

The UN has called upon the new Taliban government to respect the rights of women and girls, as fears over access to education and other human rights for women in Afghanistan continue.

However, data from the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project shows that while the West calls for changes abroad, most people living in Western nations think there is more to be done on advancing the rights of women in their own countries.

Italians are the most likely to say women's rights have not gone far enough in their country (62%), followed by similar numbers of Spaniards (60%), Hungarians (57%) and Swedes (56%). In countries such as Poland, France, Canada, Australia, and Greece approximately half of people think their nation could go further on women's rights (50-53%).

Lower proportions of people in Germany (48%), Great Britain (48%), Denmark (46%), and the United States (43%) think their countries have not gone far enough in furthering the rights of women. Around three in ten (between 34% and 29%) in each of these nations say that "women's rights have gone as far as they should go" – with generally fewer than one in ten thinking women's rights have gone too far. People in the United States are the most likely to say this, at one in nine (11%).

Breaking the data down reveals that men are consistently less likely to say women's rights haven't gone far enough in their country. The widest differences between the genders occur between Greek and Spanish men and women - both with a 28-point difference.

At 73%, Spanish women are the most likely to say their rights in Spain haven't gone far enough, versus 46% of Spanish men.

While Italy is the only nation on the survey where over half of men (55%) think women's rights should go further, women are still more likely to think so (69%).

Great Britain and the United States share the lowest proportions of women who say women's rights haven't gone far enough in their nations (49%).

See full results here

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