Discrepancies exist between males and females in literacy and educational attainment in important career fields throughout the world. Data were obtained on five world regions (Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Europe and North America) from the "Handbook of International Data on Women" (Boulding, 1976), in which data on literacy; enrollment in literacy classes; and the number of graduates in education, law, social sciences, engineering, and agriculture were analyzed. Women are highly overrepresented in the illiterate population of the world, yet are underrepresented in literacy training courses. Women are most highly represented among graduates in education; worldwide, 50 percent of such graduates are women. Although the social sciences represent the next most highly "female" field of specialization, women are equally represented or overrepresented in only 14 percent of the nations studied. Women's representation decreases drastically in the fields of agriculture, law, and engineering. They are most highly represented in law and engineering in Europe and North Africa, education and social sciences in Latin America, and agricultural sciences in Africa. The study indicates that women's limited educational opportunities limit their advancement in many areas of life throughout the world. (KC)