Measuring Gender (In)Equality
In this edition, we focus on why it is important to measure gender inequality, how this can be done and a few key dimensions of (in)equality. Happy reading!
Gender inequality remains persistent across the globe and is a major barrier in human development. While there have been major strides towards improving the lives of girls and women, gender equity remains an unattained goal. The United Nations, for example, currently lists ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ as one of its sustainable development goals.
Girls and women continue to be discriminated against in access to health and education, labor markets and political representation. They also continue to bear a larger burden of unpaid care work and in many contexts, have lower agency, say in household decision making, freedom of choice and life satisfaction.
In this edition, we discuss why measuring the status of gender equality across various dimensions is crucial to understanding how to move towards a more gender-equal world. We then list how gender equality is being measured in both macro and micro terms, and share links to useful resources.
As always, the newsletter contains job postings shared on our WhatsApp groups.
Happy Reading!
Best,
The Newsletter Team
Why Measure Gender Inequality?
Gender Inequality, all over the world is a result of systemic disparities, biases and deep rooted histories, whose degrees and intensities vary across numerous socioeconomic and political factors. Measuring these disparities presents us with realities backed with data, making it easier to address the gendered cost of human development.
This brief lists four important reasons for why it is important to track gender indicators: (1) they can help make achieving gender equality a priority; (2) they help enable better planning and action; (3) they can be used to hold institutions accountable and (4) they can help stimulate change through discussions and data collection processes. The brief also provides helpful tips on how to decide what to measure, and good practices when developing indicators.
This article discusses the causes of gender inequality in poor countries. Seema Jayachandran, in this article, discusses how economic development and gender inequality might be correlated. It is an excellent source to understand how measuring gender inequality can allow exploring channels of economic empowerment for women through evidence based policy approaches.
The Positive Impact of Measuring Gender Inequality: A Few Cases
This paper from 2021 explores how gender inequality is experimentally measured to evaluate the benefits of increased financial education for women from rural India.
This fascinating paper looks into the impact of a renowned academic, Alfred Marshall, on the propagation of exclusion of women in some of UK’s elite academic circles. While it does not use gender-specific indicators, it is an incredible example of how mainstream data can also produce valuable insights when viewed through a gendered lens.
Macro Indicators of Gender Inequality
The Gender Inequality Index is an inequality index, and measures gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development—reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates; empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females and proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education; and economic status, expressed as labour market participation and measured by labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older. It covers 162 countries, and you can download the most recent GII data!
The Gender Development Index is the ratio of the Human Development Index (HDI) calculated separately for females and males using the same methodology and basic components - health, knowledge and living standards - as in the HDI. It is a direct measure of gender gap showing the female HDI as a percentage of the male HDI. The GDI is calculated for 167 countries.
The Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) measures the evolution of gender-based gaps along four key dimensions - Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment - and tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time. In the 2021 report, calculations are available for 156 countries, and help facilitate cross country comparisons.
Note: This study critically reviews the Gender Inequality Index (GII), and argues that its particular construction limits its usefulness and appropriateness as a global gender inequality index.
In this scoping review, the authors describe and identify gaps in the measurement tools, methods, and indicators used to measure gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) in humanitarian settings. They present a dashboard that can be used by researchers, organizations and governments to identify GEWE measurement tools.
Measuring Gender Norms
This article describes the development and psychometric evaluation of a twenty-four-item scale to measure attitudes toward gender norms among young men: the Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) Scale. Scale items on gender norms related to sexual and reproductive health, sexual relations, violence, domestic work, and homophobia are designed.
This guide focuses specifically on quantitative measurements, noting that this field is still nascent, and that far more work is needed to strengthen and streamline existing methods. It provides an overview of quantitative approaches to measure gendered social norms.
This paper looks for evidence that norms constrain rural Indian women’s
labor supply by studying the impact of an exogenous increase in a woman’s control over earned income. It is a great source to specifically understand how gender norms can be measured as a form of inequality at multiple levels - men, women, households and communities - and construction of indices around these.
Measuring Women’s Agency
This review defines women’s agency as their ability to set goals and act on them, to make decisions that matter to them, and to participate in the economy and public life. It draws on quantitative evidence to support the research on interventions that aim to support women’s agency.
In this paper, the authors adapt and psychometrically test the Patriarchy Index (originally developed in the context of Europe) for India. This index covers five broad domains capturing a range of 12 variables such as age at marriage, power relations within domestic group, position of women in terms of education etc. The data used to adapt this index comes from the NFHS. This index is computed for different states of India as well as for 640 districts within states.
Through this paper, the authors propose a new method to design a short survey measure for cases where complex concepts are to be measured using a few, close-ended questions. They combine mixed-methods data collection and machine learning to develop this approach. They identify the best survey questions based on how well they predict a “gold standard” measure of the concept derived from qualitative interviews. They apply the method to create a survey module and index for women’s agency.
Must reads we found fascinating this month!
These readings are sources from recommendations and links shared on the Women in Econ/Policy community groups.
‘Covid has intensified gender inequalities, global study finds’ by Andrew Gregory talks about how the pandemic has reversed decades of progress made towards gender equality.
In this fantastic article ‘On the perils of embedded experiments’, Jean Dreze discusses a case study to highlight the dangers of evidence based research and how it can distort policy in translation.
Job and Internship Openings
Note: These are jobs shared by members over WhatsApp over the last 2 weeks. Please check if positions are still open before applying. If you are thinking about applying to one of these, you can also drop a message on the WhatsApp group or on the google group to connect with members currently working in these organisations.
Job Openings
The Development Data Lab is hiring for two positions - Data Scientist and Pre-Doc in Development Economics.
The Centre for Innovative Data in Economics Research at the Vancouver School of Economics is recruiting 5 full-time pre-docs/research assistants to start this summer.
Young 1ove, one of Africa’s largest NGOs based in Gaborone, Botswana is hiring for multiple positions. For more information, you can get in touch with Natasha Ahuja here - natasha.ahuja@economics.ox.ac.uk.
Multiple Research Associate openings at Inclusion Economics India (formerly EPoD India at IFMR) in Patna and Raipur, India
Swaniti Initiative is hiring for multiple positions in multiple locations. More information on these on their Careers page.
Oriena Bandiera, Camille Landais and Nina Rousille are hiring several predocs at the LSE Hub for Equal Representation. Details can be found here.
Internship Openings
Precision Development has multiple openings for Research Internships. Details can be found here.
This newsletter was put together by Ridhi, Ridhima, Vasanthi, Anahita, Ria, Prerna and Amruuta.
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