A few weeks ago, I ran the Chicago Marathon. Over the course of the next week, I collected the results of the race from the Chicago Marathon website and analyzed the data.
I published the full analysis on Medium, and I published a shorter version here. And I also packaged the data into an interactive dashboard on Tableau.
One of the things I noticed was that the gender (and age) distribution of runners was starkly different if you compared American runners with international runners.
This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this trend. It also came up when I analyzed the results of the Berlin Marathon, and that led me to take a second look at the results of the Boston Marathon.
I wanted to take a deeper look at the Chicago data to see how this breaks out. Are some countries more unequal than others?
Breaking Out the Gender Distribution by Country
I took the results of the Chicago Marathon that I used for the previous analysis, and I identified the twenty five largest countries. From there, I sorted those countries into regions – North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Finally, I calculated the number of women and the total number of finishers from each of those countries. I used that to calculate the share – as a percentage – of that country’s finishers that are women.
The results are plotted below.
The United States and Canada have the largest proportion of women – slightly over 50%. Mexico is slightly below them, but it’s not far behind at 44%. And it’s still much higher than most of the other countries.
Of the remaining American countries, Brazil has the largest group of women. But it’s just over 40%, and the remaining American countries sit between 30 and 40%. Argentina and Chile are small groups over all, so you could chalk that up to outliers, potentially. But Colombia had 723 finishers – and only 259 women (36%).
The European countries are consistently tilted more towards men.
The United Kingdom had the highest proportion of women – 37%. Spain had the lowest, with 22%. And the remainder sit just above or below 30%.
And then Asia is all over the place.
There are a few hundred finishers from Indonesia – and it’s split roughly 50/50. Outside the United States and Canada, they have the most evenly balanced group.
The Philippines, Taiwan, and China come next – sitting at or above 40%. So fairly even, but tilted slightly towards men.
The remaining countries are increasingly imbalanced – with India having the most male-dominated group (18%). Japan was also notably tilted (28%).
What Does This All Mean?
It’s only one race, and many of these groups are only a few hundred runners. So it’s possible that there’s some random variation here, and international travel could also influence things.
But it seems clear that the United States and Canada have a relatively balanced field of runners – while many parts of the world have more men than women.
In some cases, there are likely societal reasons for that. India, for example, is not exactly known for gender equality.
But I’m curious how well this represents the gender distribution of runners in these countries – and whether these patterns will repeat in other major marathons.
This weekend is the New York City Marathon, so I’ll be sure to take a look at that data to see how it compares. Subscribe for email updates if you’re interested in the data analysis for NYC. It should be out in the week following Sunday’s race.