Social Institutions and Gender Equality Indicators and Measurement Tools

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Social Institutions and Gender EqualityIndicator
s and Measurement Tools

• Denis Drechsler
• Johannes P. Jütting
• OECD Development Centre
• Rome ? December 2007

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OECDs Knowledge Centre on Development
A bridge between

• OECD members and partners
• Research and policy
• Policy communities
• Different actors private, public, etc.

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Gender Equality Intrinsic and instrumental
values

• One of the Millennium Development Goals
• A neglected driver for economic growth
• A double dividend for OECD countries
• More sustainable growth in non-OECD countries

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Gender equality has many dimensions
and also involves social institutions
EducationalAttainment
Health and Wellbeing
Political Empowerment
Economic Participation
Traditional Building Blocks of Gender Equality
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The OECD Data Base on Gender
GID-DB
The OECD Gender, Institutions and Development
Data Base
and its innovation
Data on Social Institutions
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What are social institutions?

• Social institutions include norms, traditions and
  family law
• They may arguably be the most important
  determinants of gender equality
• They have generally been in existence for
  centuries
• They are extremely difficult to change and
• They frequently override formal laws and
  regulations
• They are difficult to identify and measure

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How do social institutions fit in?
Gender Equality
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12 innovative variables
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Gender inequality in social institutions

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not necessarily associated with per capita
income
Scale 0 (minimum) to 1 (maximum) level of
discrimination through social institutions
Source GID Database
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Social institutions and women in paid employment
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Challenges to better data and measurement tools

• Dealing with various sources (international,
  national, non-governmental)
• Confusion of policy makers? Proliferation of
  composite indicators
• Whats missing
• Involvement of citizens bottom-up approach
• Making statistics more attractive

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The GID Data Base on Swivel
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Data, explanations, comments
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and specialised user groups
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Next step
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For more information www.oecd.org/dev/gender