Only 15% of the Faces That Appear on Banknotes Are Women

ONLY 15% OF THE FACES THAT APPEAR ON BANKNOTES ARE WOMEN

Advisa, a Swedish finance company, have conducted an in-depth analysis of the world’s banknotes. Having reviewed every note in circulation as of March 2017, the study found that only 15% of the faces that appear on banknotes are women, with 83 regions, including the United States, not celebrating women at all. An interactive infographic, Dead Men on Dollar Bills, has been created to illustrate the most interesting findings.

The study analysed all of the banknotes in circulation across 238 territories around the world. Having discarded the 370 notes that don’t feature any people at all, such as the Euro, the team counted the number of appearances of men and women on each banknote.

According to the findings, only 52 women appear on the world’s banknotes, making 178 appearances in total. In contrast, 398 men are featured 995 times. Only Sweden, Australia and Japan of the major nations achieve gender parity, with at least 50% of the faces appearing on their banknotes being women. Australia has the highest proportion, with four of the nine people on its banknotes being men. The United States joins North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, South Africa and India amongst the 83 other territories that don’t feature any women on their banknotes. All of the people featured on American currency are dead, white, male, politicians.

Her Majesty the Queen holds the record for the most appearances on the world’s money: 83 times on banknotes of 12 different currencies. This accounts for nearly 50% of all the female appearances on the world’s banknotes. In addition to featuring on British money, Queen Elizabeth II also appears on banknotes in Australia, Belize, Canada and New Zealand. Former Head of State, Ho Chi Minh, is the second most featured person on the world’s banknotes, due to the 11 different currency denominations in Vietnam.

The findings clearly show that there is a big discrepancy between men and women being featured on banknotes. A few countries such as Sweden, Australia and Japan are indeed closing in on the gap, but it seems a long way to go until gender parity is achieved on all the world’s banknotes.

About Advisa

Founded in 2011, Advisa is a Swedish loan comparison service that helps Swedish consumers save money on their loans. Their services include private loan comparison, personal protection cover and expert advisory. Through simple and secure solutions, Advisa makes it easy for anyone to quickly replace or renegotiate existing loans.