The Gender Inequality Index (GII) was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This index is a composite measure to capture the loss of achievement due to gender inequality and uses three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation. It was introduced as an experimental measure to remedy the shortcomings of the previous measurements the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) both of which were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report.
The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report with growing international recognition of the importance of eliminating gender inequality. The GDI and GEM became the primary sources of measuring global gender inequality for the Human Development Reports. The GDI and GEM have been facing much criticism for their methodological and conceptual limitations[1][2]. The GDI can not accurately measure gender inequality but adjusts the Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of human development used by the UNDP, for gender disparities but could not be interpreted independently of the HDI[3]. The difference between the HDI and GDI were small leading to the assumption that gender disparities were irrelevant to human development. With both the GDI and GEM, income levels had a tendency to dominate the earned income component which resulted in countries with low income levels not able to get high scores although the gender equality may have been near perfect. The GEM indicators showed to be more relevant to developed areas than underdeveloped areas. The participants of the World Economic Forum in 2007 recognized that the advancement of women was a significant issue which impacted the growth of nations[4]. With the amount of criticism the GDI and GEM were facing many felt that they did not fully capture the disparities women faced. In an attempt to reform the GDI and GEM the UNDP introduced the Gender Inequality Index (GII) measurement in the 2010 Human Development Report[5]. The new index is a composite measure which captures the loss of achievement due to gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation. The GII does not account for income levels which was one of the most controversial components of the GDI and GEM. It also does not allow for high achievements in one dimension to compensate for low achievement in another.[6]
As stated above the GII contains three dimension: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation. The metrics of the GII are similar in calculation to the metrics of the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), which was also introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report, and can be interpreted as a percentage loss of human development due to shortcomings in the included dimensions. The value of GII range between 0 to 1, with 0 indicating women fare equally in comparison to men and 1 indicating women fare poorly in comparison to men. Being that there is no country with perfect gender equality all countries suffer a loss of HDI from the GII measurement. The different in dimension used in the GII and HDI mean that the GII can not be interpreted as a loss of HDI directly. Therefore the GII has its own rank and value separate from the HDI.[7]
The GII is a pioneering effort in that it is the first index to include reproductive health indicators for measuring gender inequality[8]. The reproductive health dimension is measured by two indicators: the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) which is obtained through UNICEF's State of the World's Children, and the adolescent fertility rate (AFR) which is obtained through the UN Department of Economic and Social Affair’s. A high adolescent fertility rate (AFR), which measures early childbearing, results in health risks for mothers and infants as well as a lack of higher education attainment. Through the GII, reproductive health has shown to be the largest contributor to gender inequality across the globe.[9]
The empowerment dimension is measured by two indicators: the share of parliamentary seats held by each sex, which is obtained from the International Parliamentary Union, and higher education attainment levels, which is obtained through United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) and Barro-Lee data sets[10]. The GII index of higher education evaluates women's attainment to secondary education and above. The access to higher education expands women's freedom by increasing their ability to question and increases their access to information which expands their public involvement[11]. There is much literature that finds women's access to education may reduce the AFR and child mortality rates within a country[12] [13]. Due to data limitations the parliament representation indicator is limited to national parliament and excludes local government or other community involvement. Although women's representation in parliament has been increasing women have been disadvantaged in representation of parliament with a global average of only 16%[14].
The labour market dimension is measured by women's participation in the workforce. The data for this dimension is obtained through the International Labour Organization databases. Data limitations results in a lack of women's income and unpaid work being represented in the labour market dimension.[15] The dimension of labor market participation is more suited to represent gender inequalities than the earned income component because of the unreliability of earned income[16].
The GII is an association sensitive[17] complex composite measurement used to measure the loss of development through gender inequality within a country[18]. The GII measures inequalities by addressing the shortcomings of other measures through aggregate strategy using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in order to avoid aggregation problems[19]. There are five steps to computing the gender inequality Index[20].
Step 1: Treating zeros and extreme values: The maternal mortality rate is truncated systematically at minimum of 10 and maximum of 1,000. The maximum and minimum is based on the normative assumption that all countries with maternal mortality ratio's above 1,000 do not differ in their ability to support for maternal health as well as the assumption that all countries below 10 do not differ in their abilities. Countries with parliamentary representation reporting at 0 are counted as 0.1 because of the assumption that women some level of political influence and that the geometric mean can not have a 0 value.
Step 2: Aggregating across dimensions within each gender group, using geometric means: Aggregating across dimensions for each gender group by the geometric mean makes the GII association sensitive[21]. The maternal mortality rate and the adolescent fertility rate are only relevant for females the males are only aggregated with the other two dimensions.
Step 3: Aggregating across gender groups, using a harmonic mean: To compute the equally distributed gender index the female and male indices are aggregated by the harmonic mean of the geometric means to capture the inequality between females and males and adjust for association between dimensions.
Step 4: Calculating the geometric mean of the arithmetic means for each indicator: Obtain the reference standard by aggregating female and male indices with equal weight and then aggregating indices across dimensions.
note: reproductive health is not an average of female and male indices but half the distance from the norms established
Step 5: Calculating the Gender Inequality Index: To compute the GII compare the equally distributed gender index from Step 3 to the reference standard from Step 4.
According to the UNDP there was a minor calculation change to the 2011 Gender Inequality Index from the 2010 index used. The maternal mortality ratio was calculated in the Gender Inequality Index at 10 even though the range of GII values should be between 0 and 1. To correct this the maternal mortality ratio is normalized by 10, which generally reduced the values of the GII. A trend for the GII has been calculated and can be found on the Human Development Reports website.
The world average GII score is .492 which indicates a 42.9% achievement loss due to gender inequality[22]. Due to availability of data and data quality the 2010 Human Development Report calculated GII rankings of 138 for the year 2008. The 2011 Human Development Report was able to calculate the GII rankings of 146 countries for the reporting year 2011[23].
The highest ten countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII measurement for 2008[24] and 2011[25].
The lowest ten countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII measurement for 2008[26] and 2011[27].
There are some criticism's to the UNDP's Gender Inequality Index (GII) as a measurement of gender inequality globally. There are some arguments that the GII inadequately captures gender inequality and leaves out important aspects or includes unnecessary indices. The GII is a complex measurement with many indices which may be difficult for some to interpret or calculate.
Some may argue that the complexity of the GII will make it difficult to interpret or understand for the professionals who would likely want to make use of it because so many non-linear procedures are applied to the data[28][29]. Simplicity is required in order analyst, policy-makers, or practitioners to convey a clear message to the general public[30]. The GII is meant to represent a loss of human development, but the standard to which the losses occur is not stated anywhere. Unlike the GDI which with the losses occurring against the HDI making the HDI represent perfect equality[31]. The UNDP explains that the complexity of the calculations are needed in order to maintain an association sensitive measurement but alternative indices which are much less complex have also shown to be association sensitive[32].
The GII mixes indices in a few ways which furthers the complexity and poses other issues.[33][34] The measurement combines well-being and empowerment which becomes problematic in that it increases the complexity, lacks transparency, and suffers from the problem of using an arithmetic means of ratios. The GII also combines two different, absolute and relative, indicators within the same formula. For example if the MMR is higher than 10 per 100,000 it is considered inequality. Yet, parliamentary representation is only considered inequality if there is a deviation from 50 percent. Therefore if women and men fare equally in all dimensions the GII would not equal a zero value as it should[35].
The GII has been criticized on whether or not its assessment of gender inequality and use of the same set of indicators are equally relevant or meaningful across all regions of the Globe. For less-developed countries the use of the MMR and AFR in the dimension of reproductive health may be penalizing although the loss may not be entirely explained by gender inequality[36]. Less-developed countries performance in the reproductive health dimension may differ regionally or locally. Access to or use of health services can be influenced by socio-economic levels, public health policies, or social and cultural practices. In developed countries, specifically European countires, gender inequality levels are not very "robust to alternative specifications of gender-related indicators" and analysts and policy makers may choose specific methods to yield desired results[37].
The GII fails to capture the informal work and unpaid domestic or care work where women are primarily over-represented.In many underdeveloped societies women and girls spend the majority of their time in domestic work whereas men and boys spend far less if any[38]. The lack of capturing the time women spend in unpaid labor is insufficient in capturing the true global disparities of women[39].