these gender gaps are pervasive although they vary across countries and world regions while in less developed countries girls and women suffer from unequal access to economic assets education or basic health care facilities in most developed countries gender inequality persists in the form of discriminatory social institutions and beliefs about gender roles that undercut women s opportunities inhibit their full participation in economic social and political activities and therefore reduce their quality of life in developing countries child health outcomes are strongly correlated to women s access to resources countries where women lack any right to own land have on average more malnourished children where women have no access to credit the number of malnourished children is above average oecd a in highincome countries the mother s education level has been shown to have an effect on the academic achievement of their children oecd b