The Global Gender Gap Index
By Charlotte Sutherland(1)
This month’s newsletter explores the Global Gender Gap Index, a project published by the World Economic forum in 2007, in collaboration with Harvard University and the University of California. The Index provides a ranking of the gender gap in 128 countries worldwide. The 173 page report is available online at http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2007.pdf and provides comprehensive explanations and definitions of terms, as well as full country profiles with a handy user’s guide on how to make most of the data presented (2).
GENDERED INEQUALITIES
Most societies host some forms of gender inequality, developing countries notably so. Here, women face daily incongruence between their own access to resources and bargaining power in society, and those of men. These inequalities are often deeply ingrained and stubbornly maintained in cultural and religious communities, so that they require significant events, mobilisation and time to change. The Global Gender Gap Report argues that if the gaps in access to resources between men and women can be measured, as the report does, they can be improved, hence the Report aims to provide decision makers with a ‘snapshot’ of their respective gendered situations. This ‘snapshot’ is presented as a ranking, comparing gender gaps between countries and revealing the opportunities that lie beyond reducing gender gaps in access to resources. Each country’s profile provides a comprehensive detailed report of over 30 gender-related variables, as well as the original data used to create the Index and additional information on country-specific legal and social influential factors.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
The Index is founded on three underlying concepts. First, it is important to understand that the Index measures ‘gaps’, and not ‘levels’ of gender inequality, which means that the Index is independent of a country’s development level, since it measures gendered gaps in access to resources and opportunities, and not the levels of available resources. The Index thus rewards countries on the basis of the size of this gap between men and women’s access to resources. This means that a rich country will not necessarily come out tops, since its level of development and amount of resources will not automatically reflect men’s and women’s differential access to it.
Second, the Index ranks countries according to outcome variables, rather than input measures. This means that instead of measuring ‘input’, such as policies and cultural factors, the Index measures gender positions with regard to outcome variables related to basic rights, among which are health, education, economic participation and political empowerment(3). This means that regardless of policies and discourse that promise women’s upliftment and empowerment, the Index measures actual outcomes of such inputs.
Third, the Index focuses on gender equality outcomes, rather than women’s empowerment. Accordingly, it rewards countries where women’s outcomes on variables are equal to men’s, but takes a neutral stance to cases where women are outperforming men on a certain variable.
WHAT TO MEASURE?
The Index measures variables according to four sub-indexes. These sub-indexes include:
- Economic participation and opportunity;
- Educational attainment;
- Political empowerment; and
- Health and survival.
Economic participation and opportunity are measured in terms of the participation gap, the remuneration gap and the advancement gap. The gap between men and women’s educational attainment is measured through ratios of women to men in primary, secondary and tertiary education, as well female to male literacy rates. The political empowerment sub-index includes rations of women to men in minister-level positions, parliamentary positions, and years in executive office in the last fifty years. The report acknowledges that this sub-index does not capture men and women’s participation at local government levels. Such data is unfortunately not globally available. The differences between men and women’s health are measured through the gap between their life expectancies (as according to the World Health Organisation) and the sex ratio at birth, where the preference for sons manifests as the ‘missing women’ phenomenon.
A USEFUL TOOL
The Index will certainly prove to be a helpful tool for decision makers, as it provides profiles that address the strengths and weaknesses of each country. Its focus on outcomes instead of inputs will also facilitate “reality checks” with regards to the efficiency of such inputs. If a developing country, for example, is investing millions in family planning and HIV & AIDS services, yet the Index shows that this is having little impact on ground level (in terms of outcomes), policy makers and intervention managers have a sure reason to investigate the matter, and review the process. Countries can furthermore look to each other for information and experiences on situations, policies and interventions. This way international collaboration and improved efficiency in addressing gendered inequalities could produce decreased gender gaps at grassroots level, where it is most needed.
(1) Charlotte Sutherland is Gender Specialist: Gender Issues in Africa, at Consultancy Africa Intelligence (officesa@consultancyafrica.com)
(2) June’s newsletter draws heavily on this report, titled ‘The Global Gender Gap Report 2007’, published by
the World Economic Forum.
(3) The Global Gender Gap Index, p.3. Published by the World Economic Forum.
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