see the section on data quality in chapter for a description of the quality criteria first however to give an idea of how the position of both women and men has improved in absolute terms over the past years statistics on average women and men in the s s and s are provided in figure these estimates are populationweighted averages covering at least of the world s population where missing countries are imputed to alleviate a bias against developing countries for which less statistical material is available by the s however she could expect to live years longer and would marry just before her th birthday