Australia tops the table with the world’s most gender- equal bills

Five of the nine people featured on Australia’s banknotes are women, making it one of the few nations to achieve gender parity on its currency, a study found.

An analysis of all the world’s banknotes in circulation found that just 80 feature depictions of women.

Australia, Sweden and Denmark were the only major economies to have at least 50% of their banknotes featuring women, according to the study by Ubuy South Africa – a cross-border retail platform.

Australia was the only country that had a woman on every one of its banknotes; 60% of bills issued in Sweden depicted a woman; and 50% in Denmark.

Scotland also made the top list with four out of five featuring women, who had made significant contributions to society: Nan Shepherd, Mary Somerville, Elsie Inglis and Mary Slessor.

In England, although Queen Elizabeth II featured on all banknotes, it did not have any other women. To address the under-representation of women on its currency, the

Bank of England decided to replace Charles Darwin with Jane Austen on the £10 note in 2017.

Queen Elizabeth II also appears on 19 different banknotes across various countries.

Among the larger economies in the world, the US, Russia, China, India, South Africa and North Korea do not feature any women on their banknotes.