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 index is a composite measure
to quantify the loss of achievement
within a country due to gender
inequality. It uses three Countries by Gender Inequality Index (Data from 2019, published
dimensions to measure in 2020). Red denotes more gender inequality, and green more
opportunity cost: reproductive equality.[1]
health, empowerment, and labor
market participation. The new
index was introduced as an experimental measure to remedy the shortcomings of the previous
indicators, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM), both of which were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report.

Origins
As international recognition of the importance of eliminating gender inequality was growing,
the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were
introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report. The GDI and GEM became the primary
indices for measuring global gender inequality for the United Nations Human Development
Reports. The GDI and GEM faced much criticism for their methodological and conceptual
limitations.[2][3]

Beneria and Permanyer have explained that the GDI and GEM are not measurements of gender
inequality in and of themselves. The GDI is a composite index which measures development
within a country then negatively corrects for gender inequality; and the GEM measures the
access women have to attaining means of power in economics, politics, and making decisions.
Both of which Beneria and Permanyer claim are inaccurate in clearly capturing gender
inequality.[4] According to the UNDP, the GDI was criticized for its inability to accurately
measure gender inequality for its components being too closely related to the Human
Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of human development used by the UNDP.[5]

Thus, the differences between the HDI and GDI were small leading to the implication that
gender disparities were irrelevant to human development. The UNDP also claims that both the
GDI and GEM were criticized because income levels had a tendency to dominate the earned
income component, which resulted in countries with low income levels not being able to get
high scores, even in cases where their levels of gender inequality may have been low. The GEM
indicators proved to be more relevant to developed countries than less-developed countries.
With international growing concern for gender equality, the participants of the World Economic
Forum in 2007, among others, recognized that the advancement of women was a significant
issue that impacted the growth of nations.[6]
As of 2006, the World Economic Forum has been using the Gender Gap Index (GGI) in its
Global Gender Gap Reports, which ranks countries according to their gender gaps, in an
attempt to better capture gender disparities.[7] Beneria and Permanyer criticize the GGI for only
capturing inequality in certain aspects of women's lives therefore making it an incomplete
measure of gender inequality.[4]

Given the amount of criticism the GDI and GEM were facing, the UNDP felt that these indices
did not fully capture the disparities women faced. In an attempt to reform the GDI and GEM,
the UNDP introduced the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in the 2010 Human Development
Report.[5] The new index is a composite measure which, according to the UNDP, captures the
loss of achievement due to gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health,
empowerment, and labor market participation. The GII does not include income levels as a
component, which was one of the most controversial components of the GDI and GEM. It also
does not allow for high achievements in one dimension to compensate for low achievement in
another.[5]

Dimensions
There are three critical dimensions to the GII: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor
market participation. The dimensions are captured in one synthetic index, as to account for
joint significance. According to the UNDP, none of the measures in the dimensions pertain to
the country's development and therefore a less-developed country can perform well if gender
inequality is low. The UNDP considers the dimensions complementary in that inequality in one
dimension tends to affect inequality in another. Therefore, the GII captures association across
dimensions, making the index association-sensitive, and ensuring that high achievement in one
dimension does not compensate for low achievement in another dimension.[8]

Reproductive health

Permanyer notes that the GII is a pioneering index, in that it is the first index to include
reproductive health indicators as a measurement for gender inequality.[3] The GII's dimension
of reproductive health have two indicators: the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), the data for
which come UNICEF's State of the World's Children, and the adolescent fertility rate (AFR), the
data for which is obtained through the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
respectively. With a low MMR, it is implied that pregnant women have access to adequate
health needs, therefore the MMR is a good measure of women's access to health care. The
UNDP expresses that women's health during pregnancy and childbearing is a clear sign of
women's status in society.[8]

A high AFR, which measures early childbearing, results in health risks for mothers and infants
as well as a lack of higher education attainment. According to the UNDP data, reproductive
health accounts for the largest loss due to gender inequality, among all regions.[8]

Empowerment

The empowerment dimension is measured by two indicators: the share of parliamentary seats
held by each sex, which is obtained from the International Parliamentary Union, and higher
education attainment levels, which is obtained through United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Barro-Lee data sets.[9] The GII index of higher
education evaluates women's attainment to secondary education and above. Access to higher
education expands women's freedom by increasing their ability to question and increases their
access to information which expands their public involvement.[8]

There is much literature that finds women's access to education may reduce the AFR and child
mortality rates within a country.[6][10] Due to data limitations the parliament representation
indicator is limited to national parliament and excludes local government or other community
involvement. Although women's representation in parliament has been increasing women have
been disadvantaged in representation of parliament with a global average of only 16%.[8]

Labor market participation

The labor market dimension is measured by women's participation in the workforce. This
dimension accounts for paid work, unpaid work, and actively looking for work. The data for this
dimension is obtained through the International Labour Organization databases. Due to data
limitations women's income and unpaid work are not represented in the labor market
dimension of GII.[9] In the absence of reliable earned income data across countries, the UNDP
considers labor market participation a suitable substitute for economic aspects of gender
inequality.[2]

Calculations
The metrics of the GII are similar in calculations to the Inequality-adjusted Human
Development Index (IHDI), which was also introduced in the 2010 Human Development
Report, and can be interpreted as a percentage loss of human development due to shortcomings
in the included dimensions. The value of GII range between 0 and 1, with 0 being 0% inequality,
indicating women fare equally in comparison to men and 1 being 100% inequality, indicating
women fare poorly in comparison to men. There is a correlation between GII ranks and human
development distribution, according to the UNDP countries that exhibit high gender inequality
also show inequality in distribution of development, and vice versa.[8]

The GII is an association-sensitive, responsive to distributional changes across dimension,[3]

composite index used to rank the loss of development through gender inequality within a
country.[8] The GII measures inequalities by addressing the shortcomings of other measures
through aggregate strategy using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in order to avoid
aggregation problems.[6] There are five steps to computing the gender inequality Index.[8]

Step 1: Treating zeros and extreme values: The maternal mortality rate is truncated
systematically at minimum of 10 and maximum of 1,000. The maximum and minimum is based
on the normative assumption that all countries with maternal mortality ratios above 1,000 do
not differ in their ability to support for maternal health as well as the assumption that all
countries below 10 do not differ in their abilities. Countries with parliamentary representation
reporting at 0 are counted as 0.1 because of the assumption that women have some level of
political influence and that the geometric mean can not have a 0 value.

Step 2: Aggregating across dimensions within each gender group, using geometric
means: Aggregating across dimensions for each gender group by the geometric mean makes
the GII association-sensitive.[8] The maternal mortality rate and the adolescent fertility rate are
only relevant for females the males are only aggregated with the other two dimensions.

Step 3: Aggregating across gender groups, using a harmonic mean: To compute the
equally distributed gender index the female and male indices are aggregated by the harmonic
mean of the geometric means to capture the inequality between females and males and adjust
for association between dimensions.
Step 4: Calculating the geometric mean of the arithmetic means for each indicator:
Obtain the reference standard by aggregating female and male indices with equal weight, and
then aggregating indices across dimensions.

Reproductive health is not an average of female and male indices but half the distance from the
norms established

Step 5: Calculating the Gender Inequality Index: To compute the GII compare the
equally distributed gender index from Step 3 to the reference standard from Step 4.

Changes in 2011 calculations

According to the UNDP there was a minor calculation change to the 2011 Gender Inequality
Index from the 2010 index used. The maternal mortality ratio was calculated in the Gender
Inequality Index at 10 even though the range of GII values should be between 0 and 1. To
correct this the maternal mortality ratio is normalized by 10, which generally reduced the values
of the GII.

Rankings
As there is no country with perfect gender equality, all countries suffer some loss of human
development due to gender inequality. The difference in dimensions used in the GII and HDI
means that the GII is not interpreted as a loss of HDI, but has its own rank and value separate
from the HDI.[5] The GII is interpreted as a percentage and indicates the percentage of potential
human development lost due to gender inequality. The world average GII score in 2011 was
0.492, which indicates a 49.2% loss in potential human development due to gender
inequality.[9] Due to the limitations of data and data quality, the 2010 Human Development
Report calculated GII rankings of 138 countries for the year 2008. The 2011 Human
Development Report was able to calculate the GII rankings of 146 countries for the reporting
year 2011.[11]

The 2019 rankings for all scored countries based on UNDP GII data (http://hdr.undp.org/en/co
mposite/GII) are:
GII Rank HDI Rank Country GII Value

1 2 Switzerland 0.025

2 1 Norway 0.038

3 11 Finland 0.039

4 8 Netherlands 0.043

4 10 Denmark 0.043

6 7 Sweden 0.045

6 14 Belgium 0.045

7 23 South Korea 0.047

8 26 France 0.049

9 4 Iceland 0.058

10 22 Slovenia 0.063

11 23 Taiwan 0.064

12 23 Luxembourg 0.065

12 11 Singapore 0.065

14 18 Austria 0.069

14 29 Italy 0.069

16 25 Spain 0.070

17 19 Japan 0.075

18 38 Portugal 0.079

19 16 Canada 0.080

20 6 Germany 0.084

21 33 Cyprus 0.086

21 29 Estonia 0.086

23 2 Ireland 0.093

24 14 New Zealand 0.094

25 8 Australia 0.097

26 19 United Kingdom 0.109

26 48 Montenegro 0.109

28 35 Poland 0.115

29 32 Greece 0.116

29 43 Croatia 0.116

31 31 United Arab Emirates 0.118

31 53 Belarus 0.118

33 14 Israel 0.123

34 34 Lithuania 0.124

35 64 Serbia 0.132
GII Rank HDI Rank Country GII Value

36 27 Czech Republic 0.136

37 82 North Macedonia 0.143

38 73 Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.149

39 85 China 0.168

40 28 Malta 0.175

41 37 Latvia 0.176

42 69 Albania 0.181

43 45 Qatar 0.185

44 51 Kazakhstan 0.190

45 39 Slovakia 0.191

46 17 United States 0.204

46 90 Moldova 0.204

48 56 Bulgaria 0.206

49 42 Bahrain 0.212

50 52 Russia 0.225

51 40 Hungary 0.233

52 74 Ukraine 0.234

53 64 Kuwait 0.242

54 81 Armenia 0.245

55 43 Chile 0.247

56 105 Libya 0.252

56 40 Saudi Arabia 0.252

56 58 Barbados 0.252

59 62 Malaysia 0.253

60 47 Brunei 0.255

61 49 Romania 0.276

62 55 Uruguay 0.288

62 106 Uzbekistan 0.288

62 62 Costa Rica 0.288

65 95 Tunisia 0.296

65 117 Vietnam 0.296

67 70 Cuba 0.304

68 60 Oman 0.306

68 54 Turkey 0.306

70 125 Tajikistan 0.314

71 99 Mongolia 0.322
GII Rank HDI Rank Country GII Value

71 74 Mexico 0.322

73 88 Azerbaijan 0.323

73 67 Trinidad and Tobago 0.323

75 46 Argentina 0.328

76 61 Georgia 0.331

77 58 Bahamas 0.341

78 66 Mauritius 0.347

79 104 Tonga 0.354

80 79 Thailand 0.359

81 111 Samoa 0.360

82 95 Maldives 0.369

82 120 Kyrgyzstan 0.369

84 93 Fiji 0.370

85 124 El Salvador 0.383

86 86 Ecuador 0.384

87 79 Peru 0.395

88 101 Jamaica 0.396

89 126 Cape Verde 0.397

90 86 Saint Lucia 0.401

90 72 Sri Lanka 0.401

92 160 Rwanda 0.402

93 114 South Africa 0.406

94 57 Panama 0.407

95 84 Brazil 0.408

96 92 Lebanon 0.411

97 110 Belize 0.415

98 107 Bolivia 0.417

99 129 Bhutan 0.421

100 132 Honduras 0.423

101 83 Colombia 0.428

101 128 Nicaragua 0.428

103 91 Algeria 0.429

104 107 Philippines 0.430

105 97 Suriname 0.436

106 130 Namibia 0.440

107 103 Paraguay 0.446

GII Rank HDI Rank Country GII Value

108 116 Egypt 0.449

109 102 Jordan 0.450

110 142 Nepal 0.452

111 121 Morocco 0.454

112 88 Dominican Republic 0.455

113 137 Laos 0.459

113 70 Iran 0.459

115 122 Guyana 0.462

116 100 Botswana 0.465

117 144 Cambodia 0.474

118 147 Myanmar 0.478

119 113 Venezuela 0.479

119 127 Guatemala 0.479

121 107 Indonesia 0.480

122 151 Syria 0.482

123 131 India 0.488

124 185 Burundi 0.504

125 173 Ethiopia 0.517

126 143 Kenya 0.518

127 181 Mozambique 0.523

128 119 Gabon 0.525

129 150 Zimbabwe 0.527

130 168 Senegal 0.533

131 159 Uganda 0.535

132 148 Angola 0.536

133 135 Sao Tome and Principe 0.537

133 133 Bangladesh 0.537

135 138 Ghana 0.538

135 154 Pakistan 0.538

137 146 Zambia 0.539

138 170 Sudan 0.545

139 165 Lesotho 0.553

140 163 Tanzania 0.556

141 153 Cameroon 0.560

142 174 Malawi 0.565

143 138 Eswatini 0.567

 GII Rank HDI Rank Country GII Value

144 149 Republic of the Congo 0.570

145 167 Togo 0.573

146 123 Iraq 0.577

147 182 Burkina Faso 0.594

148 158 Benin 0.612

148 172 Gambia 0.612

150 175 Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.617

151 157 Mauritania 0.634

152 170 Haiti 0.636

153 162 Ivory Coast 0.638

154 189 Niger 0.642

155 182 Sierra Leone 0.644

156 175 Liberia 0.650

157 169 Afghanistan 0.655

158 184 Mali 0.671

159 188 Central African Republic 0.680

160 187 Chad 0.710

161 155 Papua New Guinea 0.725

162 179 Yemen 0.795

Top ten countries

The ten highest-ranked countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII for 2008,[8]
2011,[11] and 2012.[12]

2018 rank and value, source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-

gii (http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-gii).

2018: 9th is Iceland, 10th is Republic of Korea.

Ranking of other countries worth noting: Canada is no. 18, Australia is no. 25, China is no. 39
and United States is no. 42.
 GII Rank
GII GII HDI GII GII GII GII
Country Rank Value Rank Rank Value Rank Value
(GII value) 2018 2012 2012 2012 2011 2011 2008 2008

Netherlands 4 (0.041) 1 0.045 4 2 0.052 1 0.174

Sweden 2 (0.040) 2 0.055 7 1 0.049 3 0.212

Denmark 2 (0.040) 3 0.057 15 3 0.060 2 0.209

Switzerland 1 (0.037) 4 0.057 9 4 0.067 4 0.228

Norway 5 (0.044) 5 0.065 1 6 0.075 5 0.234

Finland 7 (0.050) 6 0.075 21 5 0.075 8 0.248

Germany 19 (0.084) 7 0.075 5 7 0.085 7 0.240

South
7 (0.048) 8 0.08 7 8 0.078 8 0.198
Korea

France 8 (0.051) 10 0.083 20 10 0.106 11 0.260

Belgium 6 (0.045) 9 0.068 * * * * GHS

Countries not included[13][14]

GII Rank GII Value HDI Rank GII Rank GII Value GII Rank GII Value
Country
2012 2012 2012 2011 2011 2008 2008

Republic of China
2 0.053 23 4 0.061 4 0.223
(Taiwan)

Bottom ten countries

The ten lowest ranked countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII for 2008,[8]
2011,[11] and 2012.[12]

2018 rank and value, source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-

gii (http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-gii).
 GII Rank
GII HDI GII GII GII GII
Country Value Rank Rank Value Rank Value
(GII value) 2018 2012 2012 2011 2011 2008 2008

Yemen 162 (0.834) 0.747 160 -- -- -- --

Afghanistan 143 (0.575) 0.712 175 141 0.717 134 0.797

Niger 154 (0.647) 0.707 186 144 0.724 136 0.807

Congo 156 (0.655) 0.681 186 142 0.710 169 0.814

Liberia 155 (0.651) 0.658 174 139 0.671 131 0.766

Central African
159 (0.682) 0.654 180 138 0.669 132 0.768
Republic

Mali 158 (0.676) 0.649 182 143 0.712 135 0.799

Sierra Leone 153 (0.644) 0.643 177 137 0.662 125 0.756

Mauritania 150 (0.620) 0.643 155 -- -- -- --

Criticisms
Although the GII is a relatively new index that has only been in use since 2010, there are some
criticisms of the GII as a global measurement of gender inequality. The GII may inadequately
capture gender inequality and leave out important aspects or include unnecessary dimensions.
The GII is a complex indicator with many components that are difficult for some to interpret or
calculate.

Complexity

Klasen and Schüler as well as Permanyer argue that the complexity of the GII will make it
difficult to interpret or understand for the professionals who would likely want to make use of it
because so many non-linear procedures are applied to the data.[3][15] Permanyer believes that
simplicity is required in order for analysts, policy-makers, or practitioners to convey a clear
message to the general public.[3]

Klasen and Schüler claim that the GII is meant to represent a loss of human development, but
the standard against which the losses are measured is not stated anywhere, unlike the GDI
where the losses were measured against the HDI, making the HDI represent perfect equality.[15]
The UNDP explains that the complexity of the calculations are needed in order to maintain an
association-sensitive measure, but Permanyer argues that alternative indices that are much less
complex have also shown to be association sensitive.[3]

Mix of indices

Both Klasen and Schüler as well as Permanyer argue that the GII mixes indices in a few ways
which furthers the complexity and poses other issues. The measurement combines well-being
and empowerment which becomes problematic in that it increases the complexity, lacks
transparency, and suffers from the problem of using an arithmetic means of ratios.[3][15]
Permanyer argues that it also combines two different, absolute and relative, indicators within
the same formula. For example, if the MMR is higher than 10 per 100,000 it is considered
inequality. Yet, parliamentary representation is only considered inequality if there is a deviation
from 50 percent. Therefore, if women and men fare equally in all dimensions the GII would not
equal a zero value as it should. Permanyer gives an example for this problem:

Consider a hypothetical country with PRf = PRm, SEf = SEm, LFPRf = LFPRm and with
the lowest MMR and AFR observed in the sample of countries for which data is available
(MMR = 10, AFR = 3.8). In that case, that hypothetical country would have a GII value
well above 0 (GII approximately 0.15).[3]

Regional relevance

Permanyer also criticizes the GII for whether or not its assessment of gender inequality, and
uses of the same set of indicators, are equally relevant or meaningful across all regions of the
Globe. For less-developed countries the use of the MMR and AFR in the dimension of
reproductive health may be penalizing although the loss may not be entirely explained by
gender inequality.[3] Less-developed countries performance in the reproductive health
dimension may differ regionally or locally. Access to or use of health services can be influenced
by socio-economic levels, public health policies, or social and cultural practices. In developed
countries, specifically European countries, gender inequality levels are not very "robust to
alternative specifications of gender-related indicators" and analysts and policy makers may
choose specific methods to yield desired results.[3]

Choice of variables

Klasen and Schüler briefly criticize the GII for its failure to capture the informal work and
unpaid domestic or care work where women are primarily over-represented. In many
underdeveloped societies women and girls spend the majority of their time in domestic work
whereas men and boys spend far less, if any.[10] Therefore, the if the GII lacks the capturing of
the time women spend in unpaid labor, it is insufficient in capturing the true global disparities
of women.[15]

See also
▪ Gender Development Index
▪ Gender Empowerment Measure
▪ Global Gender Gap Report
▪ Gender Inequalities in Liberia
▪ Human Development Index
▪ Human Development Report
▪ Multiple Correspondence Analysis
▪ United Nations Development Programme
▪ Women in Africa
▪ Women in Islam

References
1. Nations, United (2020). "Human Development Report 2020 - Table 5: Gender Inequality
Index" (http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII). United Nations Development Programme.
Retrieved 2021-01-22.
 2. Bardhan, K., and Klasen, S.(1999).UNDP's Gender-Related Indices: A Critical Review,
World Development, 27:6, pp.985-1010
3. Permanyer, I.,(2011). Are UNDP Indices Appropriate to Capture Gender Inequalities in
Europe? (http://www.ced.uab.cat/butlleti/num56_files/SIR_permanyer.pdf) Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20200911194742/https://www.ced.uab.cat/butlleti/num56_files/SIR_per
manyer.pdf/) 2020-09-11 at the Wayback Machine, Social Indicators Research, pp. 1-24
4. Beneria, L., Permanyer, I.,(2010).The Measurement of Socio-economic Gender Inequality
Revisited, Development and Change, 41:3, pp.375-399
5. United Nations Development Programme,(2011).Gender Inequality Index FAQ (http://hdr.un
dp.org/en/media/FAQs_2011_GII.pdf)
6. Ferrant, G., (2010). The Gender Inequalities Index (GII) as a New Way to Measure Gender
Inequalities in Developing Countries, SciencesNew York, pp.106-112
7. Hausmann, R., Tyson, L.D., Zahidi, S., (2006). "The Global Gender Gap Report 2006",
World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland
8. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2010; The Real
Wealth of Nations (http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Complete_reprint.pdf),
2010
9. United Nations Development Programme, Gender Inequality Index FAQ's (http://hdr.undp.or
g/en/media/FAQs_2011_GII.pdf), 2011
10. Hill and King, Women's Education and Economic Well-Being (http://dinhvutrangngan.com/te
aching/Social_Economics/College_Women/Hill-King%201995.pdf), Feminist Economics,
1995
11. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2011; Sustainability
and Equity (http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Complete.pdf), 2011
12. "Table 4 Gender Inequality Index 2012" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140103002623/http
s://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-4-Gender-Inequality-Index/pq34-nwq7). United Nations
Development Programme. Archived from the original (https://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-4-
Gender-Inequality-Index/pq34-nwq7) on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
13. "我國HDI、GII分別排名全球第23位及第2位" (http://www.dgbas.gov.tw/public/Data/36616637
1.pdf) (PDF) (in Chinese). Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
Retrieved 2013-12-26.
14. 台灣性別平等 2012排名全球第2 (http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/1113684),
Liberty Times, 2014-09-23
15. Klasen and Schüler,Reforming the Gender-Related Development Index and the Gender
Empowerment Measure: Implementing Some Specific Proposals (http://www.ccee.edu.uy/e
nsenian/catgenyeco/Materiales/2011-08-10%20M6%20-%20KlasenShuler(2011).pdf)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20131202231600/http://www.ccee.edu.uy/ensenian/c
atgenyeco/Materiales/2011-08-10%20M6%20-%20KlasenShuler(2011).pdf) 2013-12-02 at
the Wayback Machine, Feminist Economics, 17:1, 2011.

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