> In 1961, the earliest year the World Bank provides data for, the world was within 0.09 percentage points of a perfectly equal distribution. Ever since, the gap has widened; now men outnumber women on the planet by almost 60 million.
It jumps from a percentage to an absolute number. What was the absolute number before? What is the percentage after?
The reason I chose to mix the two was that comparing absolute numbers wouldn't be accurate since it would be distorted by overall population growth. That leaves you with comparing the percentages. In 2013, women accounted for 49.59% of all people, so that's .41 off a perfectly equal distribution. Yet .41 percentage points doesn't really give a good impression of what that actually means, while 60 million is a number readers can relate to more easily.
Whenever I see an article swap units mid-sentence it automatically makes me think they are doing it to bolster their argument because if they kept the same units, it wouldn't actually show what they wanted it to.
It's an unnecessary blemish on an otherwise excellent article, imo. Could instead mention percentages before and after, then stress the absolute number to get across the 60M figure.
I'm not ripping on you at all, it's an interesting article. Just wanted to provide some feedback. I'm a scientist by training and was taught early on the tricks that many papers use to make something seem big when it really isn't.
> In 1961, the earliest year the World Bank provides data for, the world was within 0.09 percentage points of a perfectly equal distribution. Ever since, the gap has widened; now men outnumber women on the planet by almost 60 million.
It jumps from a percentage to an absolute number. What was the absolute number before? What is the percentage after?