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Women's Empowerment: Gender-Related Indices As a Guide for Policy

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Women's Empowerment: Gender-Related Indices As a Guide for Policy Research Reports WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: A better understanding of the main barriers con- straining the economic role of women is necessary GENDER-RELATED INDICES for designing gender policies that promote gender AS A GUIDE FOR POLICY equality.There are several gender-related analyses of different organisations which produce periodical in- dices to identify gender equality. ULRIKE JÄGER* AND ANJA ROHWER* The development of gender indices The past three decades have witnessed a steadily in- Introduction creasing awareness of the need to empower women through measures that increase social, economic and The most important determinant of a country’s com- political equity, and provide broader access to funda- petitiveness is its human talent – the skills, education mental human rights, basic health and education. and productivity of its workforce. And women Along with the awareness of the lower status of account for one-half of the potential talent base women has come the concept of gender as an overar- throughout the world. Over time, therefore, a nation’s ching socio-cultural variable, seen in relation to other competitiveness depends significantly on whether and factors, such as race, class, age and ethnicity. Gender how it educates and utilises its female talents. is not synonymous with women, nor is it a zero-sum game implying loss for men. Rather, it refers to both To maximise its competitiveness and development women and men, and to their status, relative to each potential, each country can strive for gender equali- other (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi 2005). ty – that is, to give women the same rights, responsi- bilities and opportunities as men. Gender equality is a development goal in its own right and – as research Gender equality means women and men have equal has shown – is instrumental for the long-term growth opportunities to realise their individual potential, prospects of countries. contribute to their country’s economic and social development, and benefit from their participation in While significant improvements towards reaching society. It refers to that stage of human social devel- gender equality and empowerment of women have opment at which the rights, responsibilities and already been achieved (e.g., an impressive increase in opportunities of individuals will not be determined girls’ school enrolment worldwide over the last five to by the fact of being born male or female. In most ten years), the situation of women remains largely still societies, however, distinct gender roles and respon- unsatisfactory, especially in developing countries. In sibilities restrict the opportunities and resources these countries women are still largely denied access available to women and men, frequently in ways that to the formal labour market, do not have equal contradict women’s basic human rights and threaten opportunities to qualify for higher employment and overall human development (UNDP 2007). are consequently less likely to occupy administrative or managerial positions. But also in developed coun- International commitments tries – where basic gender equality appears to have been achieved – the challenge is now to fight the more In recognition of the importance of establishing gen- intangible discrimination against working women, der equality around the world many countries have especially in managerial positions. agreed to respond to these inequalities through differ- ent central commitments. In 1984, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was estab- * Ifo Institut for Economic Research at the University of Munich. lished as a separate fund within the United Nations 37 CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 Research Reports Development Program (UNDP) with the instruction Empowerment of women to ensure women’s involvement in mainstream activi- ties.The Commission on the Status of Women has been As one of the important commitments the declara- responsible for organising and following up the world tion of Beijing points out the necessity of women’s conferences on women in Mexico (1975), Copenhagen empowerment for the achievement of equality, (1980) and Nairobi (1985). Many countries also took development and peace in a country. Empowerment part in the international negotiations of the 1995 UN is not something that can be done by outsiders (e.g., Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing that special initiatives) “to” women. Instead, programmes produced the “Platform for Action”. can help to create the conditions whereby women can become the agents of their own development “Women’s empowerment and their full partic- and empowerment. Women’s empowerment can be ipation on the basis of equality in all spheres of viewed as a composition of interrelated and mutual- society, including participation in the decision- ly reinforcing components: making process and access to power, are fun- • Awareness building about women’s situation, dis- damental for the achievement of equality, crimination, rights and opportunities as a step to- development and peace” (UN 1995, para 13). wards gender quality. Collective awareness build- ing provides a sense of group identity and the They expanded the concept of the UNIFEM, calling it power of working as a group. “gender mainstreaming” as a mandate for all member • Capacity building and skills development, espe- states. This concept includes the application of gender cially the ability to plan, make decisions, organise, perspectives to all legal and social norms and standards, to all policy development, research, planning, Table 1 advocacy, development, imple- Selection of gender-related indicesa) mentation and monitoring. As a Country Time Measurement focus Data sources result of this conference and many coverage coverage years of work leading up to it more Gender-related Development Index (UNDP) than 100 countries announced new Inequality in achievement be- 157 countries Annually UN, World tween women and men. The since 1995 Bank statis- initiatives to improve the status of GDI provides a single score cal- tics women (UNDP 2007). culated from the following: life expectancy at birth; adult liter- acy rate; combined gross enrol- ment ratio for primary, secon- At the 2000 UN Millennium Sum- dary and tertiary education; es- mit, over 150 countries committed timated earned income. themselves to eight “millennium Gender Empowerment Measure (UNDP) goals”. One of these goals is the The extent to which women and 109 countries Annually UN, ILO, promotion of gender equality and men are able to actively partici- worldwide since 1995 Inter- pate in economic and political Parliamen- the empowerment of women. life and take part in decision- tary Union, making. The GEM provides a World Bank single score calculated from the statistics “Eliminate gender dispari- following: seats in parliament ty in primary and secondary held by women; female legisla- tors, senior officials and manag- education, preferably by ers; female professional and 2005, and at all levels of technical workers; ratio of esti- education no later than mated female to male earned income. 2015: Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum) 1. Ratios of girls to boys in pri- Four subindices composed of 134 countries Latest 2007; International mary, secondary and tertiary 14 different indicators. The worldwide began 2006 data sources education, subindices are economic parti- but calcu- cipation and opportunity, edu- lated back to 2. Share of women in wage cational attainment, political 2000 employment in the non- empowerment and health and agricultural sector, survival. All are explicitly gen- der-related. 3. Proportion of seats held by a) For more information about other indices see UNDP (2009a). women in national parlia- ment” (UN 2000). Source: UNDP (2009a, 52–72). CESifo DICE Report 4/2009 38 Research Reports manage and carry out activities, to deal with peo- nomic progress and human well-being was needed. ple and institutions in the world around them. The Human Development Index (HDI) – first intro- • Participation, greater control and decision-making duced in 1990 in the Human Development Report power in the home, community and society. by UNDP (1990) – is a new way of measuring a • Action to bring about greater equality between country’s average achievements by combining indi- men and women. cators in three basic aspects of human development: health, knowledge and a decent standard of living. In short, empowerment is a process of awareness and Human development is a broad concept with many capacity building leading to greater participation, to dimensions. The HDI is not able to capture the greater decision-making power and control, and to whole concept of human development. For example, transformative action (Karl 1995). it does not reflect political participation, gender dis- parity and human poverty, but it offers a broad Different gender indices proxy for human development. There are several gender-related assessments based Since 1990 the analytical framework of the HDI has on different datasets that provide benchmarks at the been rigorously checked. Currently the HDI takes country level. The aim is firstly to identify existing into account the following dimensions: strengths and weaknesses as a useful guide for poli- cy to reinforce women’s empowerment and gender • A long and healthy life, measured by live expec- equity. Secondly with these indices the intention is to tancy at birth; learn from the experiences of those countries that • Knowledge, measured by the adult literacy rate have had greater success in promoting the equality
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