Reforming the Gender-Related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure: Implementing Some Specific Proposals

Abstract

Since their inception in 1995, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) have been criticized on conceptual and empirical grounds. In 2005–6, the UNDP's Human Development Report Office undertook a review of these indicators and suggested some modifications. This study extends this work by adjusting the recommendations, making concrete proposals for two gender-related indicators, and presenting illustrative results for these proposed measures. These new measures include the calculation of a male and female Human Development Index (HDI), as well as a gender gap measure (GGM) to replace the GDI as a measure of gender inequality. The study also proposes and implements several modifications and simplifications to the GEM. With these adjustments, a number of Sub-Saharan countries now rank much higher, countries in the Middle East have lower scores in both measures, and some European countries fare notably worse in the revised GEM.