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What are quintiles?

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When the values for an indicator are divided into five equal groups, each grouping is a known as a quintile. Each quintile represents 1/5 or 20% of the range of values for the indicator. The first quintile represents the lowest 1/5 of values from 0-20% of the range. The second quintile includes the values from 20-40%, the third quintile includes 40-60%, the fourth quintile includes 60-80%, and the fifth quintile includes the highest 1/5 of values from 80-100%.

Viewing data by quintile allows users to quickly compare indicator values by comparing an economy’s position to other economies for which there are data.

To put this in context, Germany falls within the second quintile for female business owners as a percentage of total business owners. This means that 20% of economies (those within the first quintile) have a lower share of female business owners than Germany. It also means that 60% of economies (those within the third, fourth, and fifth quintiles) have a higher share of female business owners than Germany. 

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