Covering by women in the world

 If by “women in the world” you mean what proportion of women worldwide do not cover their heads/hair, there is no reliable global percentage. No major international survey measures head covering for all women across all religions and countries.


What we can say from large surveys:


Population Cover head/hair Do not cover


🇮🇳 Indian Muslim women 89% 11%

🇮🇳 Indian Hindu women 59% 41%

🇮🇳 Indian Christian women 21% 79%

🇺🇸 U.S. Muslim women 43% always/most of time ~57%

🇬🇧 Muslim women in Britain* >50% daily <50%

🇩🇪 Muslim women in Germany* ~40–50% daily ~50–60%

🇫🇷 Muslim women in France* ~13% daily ~87%

✡️ Israeli Jewish women ~19% 81%



*Older Pew surveys, so these should not be treated as current 2026 estimates. 


Globally


The overwhelming majority of the world's women are not Muslim or Orthodox Jewish, and head covering is not a general requirement among most Christian, secular, Buddhist and many Hindu populations. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that a majority of women worldwide do not routinely cover their heads, but assigning a precise percentage would be speculative.


Pew's global research also shows enormous variation even among Muslim women: head-covering norms differ substantially between South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe. 


If you mean “How many women in the entire world cover their heads, in actual numbers?”, I can estimate the number of women (billions) who cover vs. don't cover, by continent and religion.

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