The fourth in a series of five handbooks designed to present and analyze statistical data on women in various regions of the world, this handbook focuses on women in 14 countries of Asia and the Pacific. Beginning with an overview of population distribution and changes in the region, the analysis continues with a description of women's literacy and education, their labor force participation, their marital status and living arrangements, their fertility, and their mortality. Information is presented not only in tables, charts, and text but also in narrative forms offering a critique on concepts, availability, and quality of the data assembled on each variable. Findings show that the Asian region contains two of the world's largest countries, Mainland China and India, which together are the home of 37 percent of the earth's inhabitants. In contrast, the Pacific island nations are relatively small. Compared to other parts of the developing world, the youth (under age 15) dependency burden in Asia as a whole is low, due largely to rapidly declining family size in East Asia and Mainland China. In all countries, men outpace women in the ability to read and write, although literacy is considerably higher among younger women. In addition, there are large female/male differences in rates of economic activity in both rural and urban areas, and marriage continues to be a prime determinant of women's status throughout much of Asia. Appendices contain references; sources of data; tables; information on population by age, sex, and rural/urban residence; and abbreviations. (LH)