Towards a European Union gender equality index? Janneke Plantenga [e-mail]

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Towards a European Union gender equality
index?Janneke Plantengaj.plantenga_at_econ.uu.nl

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Towards an equality index?Within the European
union, equal opportunities between men and women
are important because a higher participation rate
of women will contribute in a decisive manner to
the employment growth that is needed to maintain
the prosperity of the Unions Member States
Yet, position of men and women differs widely
throughout Europe. In addition, policy towards
equal opportunities differs. Given this diverse
context, an effective monitoring of the current
state of affairs, based on a common set of
indicators is important.
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Towards an equality index?In the ideal case,
the index identifies countries that have achieved
relative success in promoting equal
opportunities, increases gender awareness and
induces member states to take specific actions.
The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and
the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) as developed
by the United Nations are based on very general
indicators EU differences on this index are too
small to be meaningful. In addition, GDI scores
are strongly positively related to per capita
GDP. As a result the GDI does not measure gender
equality in itself but a combination of gender
equality and levels of achievement.
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Towards an equality index?The index should
serve three main goals It should identify the
extent of gender (in)equality at a certain point
of time It should identify causes for
(in)equality with a view to suggesting policies
to reduce inequality It should enable
monitoring of the impact of these policies over
time.
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Towards an equality index?Step 1 finding an
acceptable definition of gender equality.
Universal caregiver model of NancyFraser (1997)
The trick is to imagine a social world in which
citizens lives integrate wage earning, care
giving, community activism, political
participation and involvement in the
associational life of civil society - while also
leaving time for some fun. Equal sharing of
paid work, money, decision-making power and time
? full citizenship index.
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Towards an equality index?Step 2 listing
practical requirementsThe index should
stimulate countries to pay more attention to
gender equality. The indicators selected should
therefore be practical, they should be easy to
read, meaningful and consistent.The index
should be in line with European Employment
Strategy.The index should both be feasible and
reliable operationalisation of the gender
equality index should takes into account the
availability of harmonised statistics.
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The index dimensions, sub-dimensions and
operationalisationsDimension I equal sharing
of paid labour Sub-dimensions 1 participation
Operationalisation difference in employment
rates between women and men in percentage
points Sub-dimensions 2 unemployment
Operationalisation the difference in
unemployment rates between women and men in
percentage points
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The index dimensions, sub-dimensions and
operationalisationsDimension II equal sharing
of money Sub-dimensions 1 pay Operationalisati
on difference between mens and womens average
gross hourly earnings as a percentage of mens
average gross hourly earnings Sub-dimensions
2 income Operationalisation the proportion
of female- headed single households under the
low-income threshold minus the proportion of
male-headed single households under the
low-income threshold
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The index dimensions, sub-dimensions and
operationalisationsDimension III equal sharing
of power Sub-dimensions 1 political power
Operationalisation difference in the share of
women in parliament and the share of men
Sub-dimensions 2 socio-economic power
Operationalisation difference in the share of
women in ISCO1 and the share of men
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The index dimensions, sub-dimensions and
operationalisationsDimension IV equal sharing
of time Sub-dimensions 1 caring time
Operationalisation average time of women aged
20-49 spent on providing care for children
divided by the average time of men
Sub-dimensions 2 leisure Operationalisation
average time per day spent on leisure by women
divided by average time per day spent on leisure
by men
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Calculating the indexActual values have been
standardized by applying the min-max methodology
which is also used for calculating the GDI and
GEM-indices. The calculation is standardised
value (?actual value x1?- minimum value x1) /
(maximum value x1- minimum value x1)
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Calculating the indexAs gender equality is
conceptualised as the absence of gaps, the
maximum (the optimal case) refers to the
theoretical maximum value in the case of full
equality and has always the value 0. The
minimum value is set at a level which is a little
below the actual minimum value within the EU
countries. This fixed minimum is treated as a
baseline (or in the words of the UNDP
goalpost)
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ResultsActual scores range from 0.72 (Sweden)
to 0.26 (Greece). The first cluster, with
scores of 0.60 and higher, includes Scandinavian
countries like Sweden, Finland and Denmark,
displaying the highest overall performance
The second cluster, with scores between 0.45
and 0.60, includes most countries of mid and
central Europe, like France, Germany, Poland,
Austria and the Czech RepublicThe third and
final cluster, with countries scoring below 0.45
comprises most of the southern European countries
like Italy, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Greece.
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ResultsAtypical cases in the northwest group of
countries are the UK and Ireland low scores on
the pay dimension and political power. In
addition, low score of Ireland on equal sharing
of care activities.Atypical cases from mid and
central Europe are Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary
high scores on participation, unemployment,
income and socio-economic power. Portugal is a
atypical case in the final cluster high scores
on participation, unemployment and income, and
medium scores on pay and socio-economic power.
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Debate dataThe relevance of the index, its
feasibility and reliability depend to a large
extent on the choice of indicators and the
availability of comparable harmonised data.
Reliable data sources are scarce, however,
especially in the field of earnings, income and
time use. Extension of harmonised data-bases
is absolutely essential in order to produce
reliable figures especially at fields which seem
less at the centre of social policy, but should
nevertheless be deemed essential for a just,
viable and gender equal society.
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Debate the choice of sub-dimensions and
indicators. Indicators differ in sensitivity
to economic conditions and/or policy development
operationalisation of the sub-dimension for
example participation rate in head count of full
time equivalents.
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Debate the methodology appliedGender gaps are
standardised in such a way that the values
indicate the actual distance towards a situation
of full gender equality. It gives no indication
whether the actual inequality refers to a
negative gender gap or a positive gender gap.
Movements in time may be difficult to evaluate
because the gender gap in, for example, pay can
be reduced through an increase in the hourly
wages of women or through a decrease in the
hourly wages of men. A score on the gender
equality index should therefore not be seen as a
final answer, but rather as an incitement to
further research (viz. benchmarking).
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Debate the empirical results. Gender
equality is still a long way off. The maximum
value of EUGEI is 1, which corresponds to a
situation of complete gender equality. However,
the maximum score does not exceed 0.72, and six
countries score below 0.45. Relatively low
scores are found for the sub-dimensions pay
(highest score is 0.64 for Slovenia) Other
indicators which signify a large gap to full
equality are care and leisure, although the
scores may be distorted because of lack of data