GENDER-RELATED DEVELOPMENTINEQUALITY

WHO SAID SEXISM WAS

DEAD?

I DID. NOW GO MAKE ME

A SANDWICH.

FLAWS INTHE HDI

Remember that the HDI reflects the AVERAGE level of development in a state.It does not reflect the actual quality of life for any individual.

Countries with highs HDI may have gaps between the poor and the wealthy and between WOMEN and MEN.

According to the UN, every single country on the planet still demonstrates some level of gender inequality.

IMPACT OF WOMEN ON THE

ECONOMYRemember from chapter 2 that improving the power and status of women has hugely positive impacts on the economy and the HDI.

Women who are educated and stay in school longer are more likely to learn employment skills.

With employment skills, they are more likely to get jobs gain economic control of their lives.

With jobs, women gain reproductive control… they will marry later, have children later and have fewer children.

More money flows into the community, the MMR and IMR drop, the NIR drops, the populations stabilizes and the country can move into stages 3 and 4 of the demographic transition.

GDITo measure a given country’s level of gender inequality, the UN developed two indexes.

The first WAS called the GENDER-RELATED DEVELOPMENT INDEX (GDI).

GDI uses the same indicators as the HDI but adjusted to reflect the difference in accomplishments between men and women:

ECONOMIC INDICATOR (1) SOCIAL INDICATOR (2) DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATO2 (1)

Per capita female income as percentage of per capita male income

Female v. Male school enrollmentFemale literacy v. Male literacy

Life Expectancy Female v. Male

GDIIndicactors

HDI v. GDI

GEMThe second index WAS called the GENDER EMPOWERMENT INDEX (GEM).It measures women’s to participate in the process of improving their status.

GEM combines indicators of Economic and Political

empowerment for women:

ECONOMIC INDICATORS (2)-Per capita female income as percentage of male-% professional and technical jobs held by women

-% administrative jobs held by women-% female members of national government

POLITICAL INDICATORS (2)

GEMIndicators

COMPARING GDI to GEM

For all countries, the GDI is higher than the GEM.

This means that in all countries, women possess a greater share of the country’s resources that they do of the power to allocate those resources.

In general, MDCs have better gender equality than LDCs.

GIIThe UN has also recently REPLACED the GDI and the GEM with the Gender Inequality Index (GII). It ranges from 0, which indicates that women

and men fare equally, to 1, which indicates that women fare as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions.

EMPOWERMENT INDICATOR (2) LABOR INDICATOR (1) REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH INDICATOR (2)

% seats held by women in Nat. Gov.% women with High School diplomas

Female labor force participation Maternal Mortality RatioAdolescent Fertility Rate

GII

GIIIn 2013, while the US ranked 4th on the HDI, it ranked 47th on the GII behind countries like Slovenia (1), South Korea (17), Estonia (29), China

(37), Libya (40), and the UAE (43).

While inequality has declined in nearly every country since the 1990’s, inequality in the US has actually increased. Of particular weakness for the US are women’s reproductive rights and the percentage of women in the national legislature:

84/435 in the House and 20/100 in the Senate in 2015