The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is an
index
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
designed to
measure gender equality. GEM is the
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
's attempt to measure the extent of
gender inequality
Gender inequality is the social phenomenon in which men and women are not treated equally. The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in the society. Some of these distinctions are empi ...
across the globe's countries, based on estimates of women's relative
economic income, participation in high-paying positions with economic power, and access to professional and parliamentary positions. It was introduced at the same time as the
Gender-related Development Index The Gender Development Index (GDI) is an index designed to measure gender equality.
GDI, together with the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), was introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program ...
(GDI) but measures topics like empowerment that are not covered by that index.
History
In 1995 in the ''
Human Development Report
The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual Human Development Index report published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The first HDR was launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist ...
'' commissioned by the
United Nations Development Program
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
set-out to create two new measurement indices for measuring development. Their aim was to add to the
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
by way of including a gender dimension in the measure. They were created in order to rival the traditional income-focused measures of development such as the
Gross Domestic Product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...
(GDP) and the
Gross National Product
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...
(GNP).
Mahbub ul Haq
Mahbub ul Haq ( ur, ; ) was a Pakistani economist, international development theorist, and politician who served as the Minister of Finance of Pakistan from 10 April 1985 to 28 January 1986, and again from June to December 1988 as a caretak ...
, the first director of the Human Development Report Office, established several principles for the newly emerging measure including provisions that it had to be simple, had to be represented as a single number, had to be easily calculated, had to yield numbers that were internationally comparable, had to use numbers available on a yearly basis and had to use numbers that were easily interpretable. The resulting measures that were created were the
Gender-related Development Index The Gender Development Index (GDI) is an index designed to measure gender equality.
GDI, together with the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), was introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program ...
(GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GEM, the more specialized of the two, is focused on indicating the relative
empowerment
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...
of women in a given country.
[Klasen S. UNDP's Gender-Related Measures: Some Conceptual Problems and Possible Solutions. Journal of Human Development erial online July 2006;7(2):243-274. Available from: EconLit with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed September 26, 2011.]
Definition and calculation
The GEM was designed to measure "whether women and men are able to actively participate in economic and political life and take part in decision-making" (UNDP, 1995, p. 73)(Klasen 257). The GEM tends to be more agency focused (what people are actually able to do) than well-being focused (how people feel or fare in the grand scheme of things).
The GEM is determined using three basic indicators: Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments, percentage of women in economic
decision making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rati ...
positions (incl. administrative, managerial, professional and technical occupations) and female share of income (earned incomes of males vs. females).
[Betata, H. C. (2007). What is missing in measures of women's empowerment?. Journal of Human Development , 7(2), 221-241.] The GEM is thought to be a valuable policy instrument because it allows certain dimensions that were previously difficult to compare between countries to come into international comparison.
[Charmes J, Wieringa S. Measuring Women's Empowerment: An Assessment of the Gender- Related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure. Journal of Human Development erial online November 2003;4(3):419-435. Available from: EconLit with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed September 26, 2011.]
Debates
As time passes, and these measures (the GDI and the GEM) are applied year after year, debate has arisen over whether or not they have been as influential in promoting gender-sensitive development as was hoped when they were first created. Some of the major criticisms of both measures includes that they are highly specialized and difficult to interpret, often misinterpreted, suffer from large data gaps, do not provide accurate comparisons across countries, and try to combine too many development factors into a single measure. The concern then arises that if these indices are not well informed, then their numbers might hide more than they reveal.
In terms of the GEM in particular, it is often said to represent an elite bias.
It has been accused of measuring inequality only among the most educated and economically advantaged women and to focus mainly on the higher echelons of society.
Women in grassroots organizations or at the local political level are not reflected, as well as work in lower levels of employment or in the informal sector, where many women in poor and developing countries are forced to seek employment.
Furthermore, statistical information (data) is not very readily available for many of the indicators in the GEM. Not many less-developed countries collect reliable data on women's involvement in economic participation or labor involvement. As a result, the GEM is only reliable for very highly developed countries which do collect those statistics. It is also often argued that the number of women in parliament isn't an adequate indication of gender empowerment progress in a given country because many times
feminists
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...
are considered political liabilities, and as such, female politicians do not always promote female interests. On the other hand, however, information regarding the number of parliamentary seats held by women is very easy to obtain, and very hard to alter, making it one of the more reliable sources of data in the measure. Another criticism of the GEM is its failure to address the issue of female control over their bodies and sexuality, which some argue is an important source of female empowerment and as such should be included in the measure.
Additionally, the GEM has also been criticized for being far too dependent on the income component of the measure for determining the overall GEM score.
Suggestions for improving
Suggested alterations
Many suggestions have been made to alter the GEM. It has been suggested that the GEM be altered to include female representation in local government instead of only national government to make it less elite. Furthermore, it has been recommended that it should be revised to reflect female participation in political activities such as voting. Additionally, it has been recommended that a component regarding women's control over their own bodies and sexuality be added by measuring availability of
birth control
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
and the right to abortion. It has also been suggested that the GEM could be altered to include the proportion of females who are in
extreme poverty
Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...
as opposed to the proportion of parliamentary positions held by females. Lastly, it has been suggested that the GEM could be altered to include female levels of unemployment.
Other suggestions include coming up with different ways to deal with the earned income part so as to make it a more straightforward mode of measurement.
[Klasen, Stephan1; Schuler, Dana. Reforming the Gender-Related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure: Implementing Some Specific Proposals. Feminist Economics. January 2011 (1) 1 - 30]
Suggested alternatives
Suggestions have also been made to replace the GEM as a whole.
One such suggestion is the calculation of separate
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
es for males and females
which would provide a more straightforward picture of gender inequality (first suggested by Halis Akder in 1994).
Another suggestion is to create a Gender-Gap Measure.
In 2003 Charmes and Wieringa came up with the Women's Empowerment Matrix which considers six spheres (physical, socio-cultural, religious, political, legal and economic) as well as six levels: individual, household, community, state, regional, and global. The GEE is another suggested alternative to the GEM, this measure would include legal framework and protection of women's rights, as well as other important areas of women's empowerment that are overlooked by the GEM like women's movements, public attitudes, and equal rights.
Lastly, in the 2010
Human Development Report
The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual Human Development Index report published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The first HDR was launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist ...
, a new measuring mechanism was created entitled the
Gender Inequality Index
The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is an index for measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). According to the UNDP, this inde ...
. This new experimental measure considers three dimensions: Reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation which aim to ameliorate some of the problems associated with the GEM.
See also
*
Gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
*
Gender inequality
Gender inequality is the social phenomenon in which men and women are not treated equally. The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in the society. Some of these distinctions are empi ...
*
Gender Parity Index
The Gender Parity Index (GPI) is a socioeconomic index usually designed to measure the relative access to education of males and females. This index is released by UNESCO. In its simplest form, it is calculated as the quotient of the number of fem ...
*
Gender-related Development Index The Gender Development Index (GDI) is an index designed to measure gender equality.
GDI, together with the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), was introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program ...
*
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
*
Global Gender Gap Report
The Global Gender Gap Report is an index designed to measure gender equality. It was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum.
It "assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male an ...
*
Social Institutions and Gender Index The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is an index designed to measure the level of discrimination in social institutions, and in doing so measure gender equality. SIGI is a composite indicator of gender equality, introduced by the OECD De ...
*
Human Poverty Index
The Human Poverty Index (HPI) was an indication of the poverty of community in a country, developed by the United Nations to complement the Human Development Index (HDI) and was first reported as part of the Human Deprivation Report in 1997. It i ...
*
National Human Development Report
The National Human Development Reports (NHDR) take the Global Human Development Report approach to the national level and are prepared and owned by national teams. More than 540 national and sub-national HDRs have been produced so far by 135 countr ...
*
UN Women
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, is a United Nations entity working for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women advocates for the rights of women and girls, and focu ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gender Empowerment Measure
Gender equality
International rankings
United Nations Development Programme
1995 introductions