Measuring Gender Equality and Womens Advancement through Indicators Geeta Rao Gupta International Ce

1
Measuring Gender Equality and Womens Advancement
through Indicators Geeta Rao
GuptaInternational Center for Research on
WomenIWDA Symposium on the Harmonization of
Gender Indicators Canberra, June 15-16, 2006
2
The MDGs Another Opportunity

• To fill the gap between policy commitment and
  action
• To take advantage of the demand for
  accountability and results

3
MDG 3

• To promote gender equality and empower women.
• Success depends on the extent to which the
  priorities necessary to achieve this goal are
  implemented and the extent to which actions to
  meet the other MDGs address gender inequality.

4
Ingredients for Success

• Clarity of definition of concepts
• Stated priorities for action
• Country-level targets
• Gender-specific indicators to monitor progress at
  the national level and within international
  agencies

5
Target for Goal 3

• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
  secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at
  all levels of education no later than 2015.
• Limited in scope
• Insufficient to meet Goal 3

6
Framework of Gender Equality

• Three domains
• Capabilities education, health and nutrition
• Access to Resources and Opportunities access to
  economic assets and resources as well as
  political opportunity
• Security reduced vulnerability to violence and
  conflict
• Focus on the poor, adolescents, and women in
  conflict and post-conflict settings

7
Definition of Empowerment

• Ability of a woman to control her own destiny
• Requires
• equality in capabilities
• equality in access to resources and
  opportunities
• the agency to use those to make strategic choices
  and decisions
• freedom from coercion and violence.

8
Strategic Priorities

• Strengthen opportunities for post-primary
  education for girls while simultaneously meeting
  commitments to universal primary education
• Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and
  rights
• Invest in infrastructure to reduce womens and
  girls time burdens
• Guarantee womens and girls property and
  inheritance rights
• Eliminate gender inequality in employment
• Increase womens share of seats in national
  parliaments and local government bodies
• Combat violence against girls and women

9
Indicators for Goal 3

• Indicators listed
• Ratio of girls to boys enrolled in primary,
  secondary, and tertiary education
• Ratio of literate females to males among 15 to 24
  year olds
• Share of women in wage employment in the
  nonagricultural sector
• Proportion of seats held by women in national
  parliaments

10
Limitations of the Indicators

• Inadequate for tracking all the strategic
  priorities
• Technical shortcomings
• Ratio of girls to boys enrolled does not reveal
  what proportion of girls or boys of that age
  group are enrolled
• Great variability in the definition of literacy
• Females in nonagricultural employment is
  restricted to only one category of work and does
  not reveal other inequalities, in entry, terms of
  work, earnings, or security
• Proportion of seats does not measure womens
  participation at the local level.

11
Criteria for Selecting Indicators

• Simplicity
• Few in number for each priority
• Policy relevance
• Comparability
• Affordability
• Limitation All measures of parity, not quality
  of outcomes or how they are achieved.

12
Task Force Recommended Indicators

• Education
• The ratio of female to male gross enrolment rates
  in primary, secondary, and tertiary education
• The ratio of female to male completion rates in
  primary, secondary, and tertiary education

13
Task Force Recommended Indicators

• Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
• Proportion of contraceptive demand satisfied
• Adolescent fertility rate
• Infrastructure
• Hours per day (or year) women and men spend
  fetching water and collecting fuel

14
Task Force Recommended Indicators

• Property Rights
• Land ownership by male,female, or jointly held.
• Housing title, disaggregated by male, female, or
  jointly held
• Employment
• Share of women in employment, both wage and
  self-employment, by type
• Gender gaps in earnings in wage and
  self-employment

15
Task Force Recommended Indicators

• Participation in national parliaments and local
  government bodies
• Percentage of seats held by women in national
  parliaments
• Percentage of seats held by women in local
  government bodies
• Violence against women
• Prevalence of domestic violence

16
Gender-specific Indicators Essential

• For making accountability mechanisms work to
• examine outcomes and results and assess them
  relative to expectations (and/or baseline
  conditions)
• determine the causes for lack of success, learn
  from them and fix them
• For making gender mainstreaming work

17
What is Needed?

• Infusion of resources into country statistical
  agencies
• Technical support from international agencies
• Harmonization of indicators and coordination
  across agencies
• Continued funding for WISTAT and Trends in the
  Worlds Women
• Continue to fund the focal point on women in the
  UN Statistics Division