Gender Equality Measures Research Articles

Measuring Structural Gender Equality in Mexico: A State Level Analysis

The main goal of this article is to assess the level of gender equality across the 32 Mexican states. After reviewing conceptual and methodological issues related to previous measures of structural inequality I detail the logic and methodology involved in the construction of a composite and multidimensional measure of gender equality, at the social structural or macrosystem, level in Mexico: GEIMS (Gender Equality Index in Mexican States). The importance of assessing the level of gender equality among Mexican states is of theoretical and practical relevance for understanding potential sources of regional differences regarding many social phenomena. The methodology can be also used to construct gender equality indexes in other Latin American countries.

Gender and the Orange Revolution

A gendered perspective on politics is used for explaining why Ukraine's Orange Revolution has so far not led to a dramatic increase in the political influence of civic associations or to a broader democratization of power relations within the political system. Women entered the post-communist political system in a marginal position. They were also never able to develop political bargaining power in the authoritarian political system that emerged after Ukraine's independence. The prospect of integration into the European Union has increased the salience of gender inequality, because states that seek to join the EU must enact extensive equal opportunity legislation. But elite divisions about Ukraine's geopolitical orientation reduce the likelihood that gender equality measures that have been introduced will be implemented successfully. This article benefited from helpful comments from David Mandell and Nicole Edgar Morford. The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and the Reed College Levine Fund generously provided funding that made possible the research upon which this article is based.

Explaining new trends in the gender gap of mortality: Insights from a regional trend- analysis of the Netherlands

The recent decrease of the male-female mortality gap in Western Europe has been accompanied by changes in the life style, educational level, family roles and employment of women. In this paper we try to find out whether a relationship indeed exists between the increase in gender equality and the decrease in the male/female mortality difference. We used regional-level data for the Netherlands for the periods 1980-83 and 1996-99 on gender differences in life expectancy, by age group and cause of death, and various measures of gender inequality on the same regional level. In doing this we followed as far as possible a framework recently developed by Ingrid Waldron to analyse changes in gender differences in mortality in the US. The cross-sectional analyses showed that in 1980-83 it was rather socioeconomic than gender role variables that were important in explaining gender difference in mortality, while in the period 1996-99, it was the other way around.

Global Patterns and Determinants of Sex Differences in Smoking

The worldwide spread of tobacco use in recent decades raises questions about the relative prevalence of smoking among men and women. Does the degree of gender equality in nations promote equality in cigarette use? Does rising use of cigarettes by women stem from the stage of cigarette diffusion and earlier increases among men? Or have changes in economic factors and smoking policy affected the sexes differently? This study uses aggregate data for 106 nations, measures of smoking prevalence circa 2000, and lagged measures of gender equality, cigarette diffusion, and tobacco access to address these questions and evaluate the underlying theories. With the logged ratio of female to male prevalence as the dependent variable, regression results reveal that gender equality has inconsistent effects on women's smoking relative to men, cigarette diffusion has more consistent and moderately strong effects, and economic factors have weak effects. Global patterns of adoption of cigarettes by women appear most closely associated with the early adoption by men and then movement through a regular pattern of cigarette diffusion.

Essay: Development of children's creativity to foster peace

Peace-making as merely a subdiscipline of statecraft has little value when any small group can cause unimaginable destruction, and violence becomes a socially accepted response to perceived threats. For a global culture of peace to be built, the next generation must be imbued with new systems of thinking and feeling. Such approaches are the domain of cognitive science, translated through practice into perceptual and behavioural change. This essay describes an art-based programme to develop creativity and empathy in young people living in a confl ict zone. Research suggests that creativity can be nurtured by a holistic approach to child development encompassing cognitive, physical, and emotional capacity. Heilman and colleagues wrote that “although extensive knowledge and divergent thinking are critical for creativity, they alone are insuffi cient for allowing a person to fi nd the thread that unites. Finding this thread might require the building of diff erent forms of knowledge ... through coactivation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected.” The arts can aid a child’s holistic development, especially empathy, which is defi ned as the ability to identify and express one’s own emotions and to read another’s emotions correctly and comprehensively. A RAND study noted that the communicative and personal nature of creative expression, accentuated through collective arts activities, can forge social bonds while supporting identity formation and cultural transmission. The power of the group transcends the sum of individual eff orts. A working hypothesis is that the arts stimulate a problem-fi nding attitude that can be used in non-arts areas, including confl ict resolution. David Perkins of Harvard Project Zero has argued that the arts provide a sensory anchor, are instantly accessible, and engage and sustain attention, thereby encouraging rich connections. Such beliefs are supported by testimonials from children who have taken part in creative arts programmes developed by the International Child Art Foundation (ICAF): creativity “leads us to innovation”; “lets me express what I think and feel in diff erent ways”; and “decorates the artwork with a sense of uniqueness”. ICAF has developed methods to nurture the innate creativity and intrinsic empathy of children and young people. With nearly a decade’s experience, ICAF programmes initiate a developmental and sequential process of healing, creativity, communication, empathy, and cooperation. This progression is illustrated in the Peace through Arts approach, developed after the attacks in the USA on Sept 11, 2001. The initiative was spurred on by the spontaneous artistic expressions of sadness and support from children in the USA and around the world who sent ICAF their unsolicited works. The approach aims to diminish the transgenerational transmission of trauma and hatred, and draws on the creativity and imagination of young people in teaching them the ethics of responsibility and mutual respect. It fi rst helps children to recognise their responses to trauma, then to understand the reasons for confl ict and how artistic expression can reduce tensions. Subsequent modules impart confi dence and develop empathy through the experience of collective creativity and provide action steps for children to apply their creativity toward building a vision of peace in their communities. The Cypriot Peace through Art project is a good example. The 3-week programme in Washington DC involved ten Greek-Cypriot and ten Turkish-Cypriot children, then aged 14–15 years, who had grown up on opposite sides of the “green line” that partitions Cyprus. Participants were selected on the basis of an art competition organised by the Cyprus Fulbright Commission. Before going to Washington, each participant constructed a poster board titled “Myself”, describing his or her home and family, hobbies, pets, and favourite things to do. At the fi rst meeting, the poster boards served to overcome the teenagers’ natural hesitation in introducing themselves. They continued to explore issues of self-identity and “the other” in their fi rst activity, which was to produce artistic impressions. For Ashfaq Ishaq is Executive Director of the International Child Art Foundation, which uses the arts to enable children to lead us to a better and safer world by developing their innate creativity and intrinsic empathy.

The subordination of the gender equality objective: the National Reform Programmes and ‘making work pay’ oplicies

ABSTRACTThe streamlining of the Lisbon strategy has introduced new integrated guidelines for economic policy and employment strategy and a new report format––the National Reform Programme. In the first year of this new reporting mechanism, Member States have paid less attention to gender mainstreaming and gender equality objectives, not least because the gender equality guideline has been removed. Streamlining has further exposed the narrow and instrumental focus on gender equality measures in the Lisbon process as a means of raising the employment rate rather than a broader concern for equal opportunity. This narrow gender equality approach also dilutes the efficacy of the economic and employment policies that are advanced. Some positive steps to advance gender equality continue to be taken, but the reforms are partial, uneven and coexist with negative developments. We illustrate this with an evaluation of the policy trajectory in relation to the ‘making work pay’ agenda for low‐waged workers (tax/benefit reform, minimum wages, childcare and parental leave). We conclude that this latest reform to the Lisbon process has exposed the enormous amount of political work and capacity building that is needed to mainstream gender issues across the whole field of economic, employment and social policies.

Gender Equality in Malta: a Southern European Perspective

This article looks at current gender equality measures, within wider social policy formation, in the smallest EU member state of Malta. The theoretical approach combines discussion of the effect of past histories on present measures, of the State and the 'power resources' of trade unions, of supranational actors such as the EU and of Roman Catholic discourses. This is especially relevant regarding the contest between the recent state promotion of employment for married females and mothers, and the Church's continued antipathy to such practices1. The impact of the EU on Maltese policy is evident not only in the local legislative compliance with Directives and Recommendations, and in the setting up of national equality machinery, but Dr Mary Darmanin is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Malta, Malta. She has publications in the field of gender in education, women in the labour market and policy-making in education and in social policy. She has been a member of the working group on Gender in the National Curriculum, Ministry of Education Malta and on the Malta Labour Party's Consultative Committee on

The Uses and Misuses of the Gender‐related Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure: A Review of the Literature

The 1995 Human Development Report introduced two new measures of well‐being: the Gender‐Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The two indexes were created with the intention of attracting more attention to gender inequality issues. This paper first of all reviews the attention the indexes received in the publications of the United Nations Development Programme itself, concentrating on their use in national and subnational Human Development Reports. It also reviews how the two indexes were used in academia and the press. The main result of the review is that the GDI in particular seems to be a measure that is not used appropriately. In most cases of misuse, the GDI was wrongly interpreted as a measure of gender inequality. Due to the many misinterpretations, the potential policy impact the GDI and GEM can have seems limited.

Gender and salary: A study of accountants in Japan

Increasing globalization exerts pressures on countries toward social and cultural convergence. Such homogenizing forces are particularly visible at the macro and policy levels. In response to such pressures, Japan introduced an ambitious ‘Plan for Gender Equality’ in 1996. Significant differences in culture, however, between Japan and the western countries that it trades with may make gender equality more difficult to achieve. A recent report ranking Japan 32nd in terms of the GEM, an international measure of gender equality, reveals the problems Japan has encountered in attempting to achieve gender equality. The accounting profession in Japan is a relatively new profession that women have successfully entered in large numbers in recent years. As a new profession, it thus may be freer of entrenched cultural constraints enabling gender-equality efforts to have greater impact. Using data obtained from 235 professional accountants in Japan, we investigated the existence of a pay differential between male and female accountants, and the relationships between human capital factors, gender, and accountants' salary. We also explored the existence of gender-based differences in pay satisfaction.

A RETROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND FEMALE HOMICIDE VICTIMIZATION

ABSTRACT For the period 1981 to 1993 women represented 21 to 26 percent of homicide victims in the United States annually (Smith and Kuchta 1993). During this same time period sex-specific homicide rates have been among the forms of disaggregation researchers have used to test the utility of traditional correlates of homicide in predicting rates across various population subgroups and units of analysis. Based upon earlier research of the effects of gender inequality upon rates of lethal violence against women, and by applying a feminist theoretical perspective, it is hypothesized that the effect of general social structural characteristics of cities upon women's risk of homicide is mediated by levels of gender inequality. Specifically, this study examines the effects of gender, socioeconomic, legislative, political and extra-legal inequality upon female homicide victimization among 217 U.S. central cities for the period of 1989–1991. Using structural equation modeling results indicate that, among traditional social structural factors, economic deprivation, population size, divorce rate, and the sex ratio all have significant, positive effects on female homicide rates. However, in subsequent models testing the mediating effects of measures of gender inequality on the association between social structural variables and female homicide rates the divorce rate is the only social structural factor that continues to have a significant, positive effect upon homicide rates. Among the four measures of gender inequality, and in support of an ameliorative feminist argument, socioeconomic inequality has a significant, positive influence on rates of female homicide victimizaton. There is also a significant, negative effect of gender legislative inequality upon these rates. That is, the more laws or acts favorable to women, the lower their rates of homicide victimization. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Gendered dilemmas of the work‐life balance in Hungary

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to examine the gendered nature of work‐life policies in and the work‐life conflicts of managers in a multinational corporation in Hungary.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on 30 qualitative interviews with male and female managers at junior, middle and senior management levels located in Unilevers Eastern European headquarters in Budapest.FindingsThe results show that while legislative measures for family‐leave related policies are being encouraged in the EU, this is not the case with employer organizations in transition states, yet this is an important aspect of gender and employment policy as accession states begin to redesign their programmes to fall in line with EU guidelines. The research reveals that attempts to introduce family‐friendly policies still create gendered effects and gendered dilemmas for individual managers. The results reveal that men and women have different perceptions of work‐life balance and adopt different coping strategies to manage work and family commitments. Overall it is found that work‐life balance is constructed as an individual, rather than a corporate responsibility and this also creates gendered inequalities.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses on one organisation in a transition context and so results cannot be generalised.Originality/valueThe paper aims to contribute to the limited knowledge that currently exists on work‐life initiatives in a transition context and attempts to clarify how gender equality measures can be understood and further developed within the Hungarian context.

Gender Equality and Intrastate Armed Conflict

In this article, I examine to what extent gender equality is associated with lower levels of intrastate armed conflict. I use three measures of gender equality: (1) a dichotomous indicator of whether the highest leader of a state is a woman; (2) the percentage of women in parliament; and (3) the female-to-male higher education attainment ratio. I argue that the first two measures in particular capture the extent to which women hold positions that allow them to influence matters of war and peace within a state. I further argue that all three measures, but especially the last two, capture how women are valued relative to men in a society, that is, the relative degree of subordination of women. Whereas female state leadership has no statistically significant effect, more equal societies, measured either in terms of female representation in parliament or the ratio of female-to-male higher education attainment, are associated with lower levels of intrastate armed conflict. The pacifying impact of gender equality is not only statistically significant in the presence of a comprehensive set of controls but also is strong in substantive terms.

Identifying `Rogue' States and Testing their Interstate Conflict Behavior

We explore and define the concept of a `rogue' state based on a state's domestic patterns of behavior. We combine measures of domestic gender equality, ethnic discrimination and state repression to identify characteristics of rogue states. Once we have identified rogue states, we perform logistic regression to predict whether rogue states are more likely to be the aggressors during international disputes — whether they are more likely to use force first during interstate conflict, controlling for other possible causes of state use of force. This research adds to a growing body of scholarship in International Relations regarding the behavior of states involved in conflict, which demonstrates that states with higher levels of inequality, repression and violence exhibit higher levels of violence during international disputes and during international crises. This argument is most fully developed within feminist scholarship; however, research in the field of ethno-apolitical conflict has also highlighted the negative impact of domestic discrimination and violence on state behavior at the international level.

Revisiting UNDP's GDI and GEM: Towards an alternative.

textabstractThere are two reasons why it is important to have a good measure of gender equality in countries or regions. One is that it is important in itself: countries or regions want to compare their achievements in this area with those of other countries. The second is that such a measure can be used to assess the relationship between gender equality and economic development. In 1995, UNDP has developed two composite indices of gender equality, the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The paper reviews and extends conceptual and methodological critiques of not only the GDI, but also the GEM – the latter has thus far largely been neglected in the literature. The paper then goes on to develop an alternative composite measure of gender equality that draws on the good aspects of GDI and GEM, but attempts to avoid their methodological weaknesses.

The Puzzle of Gender Segregation and Inequality: A Cross-National Analysis

Occupational gender segregation has generally been assumed to be a structure of gender inequality in the labour market ; high levels of segregation are equated with high levels of gender inequality in a society. The paper questions this assumption. It examines, across a range of countries, the relations between United Nations development measures of gender equality and segregation levels. Contrary to conventional expectations, correlations are found to be positive. To explain these results it is argued that segregation, as measured by conventional segregation indices, is not necessarily indicative of gender inequality which operates to the advantage of men in national labour markets. The usual segregation measures are argued to be the resultant of two components: vertical segregation measuring inequality, and horizontal segregation measuring difference without inequality (here vertical and horizontal are used in their usual mathematical sense rather than the special senses sometimes found in segregation literature). It concludes that the relationship between segregation and inequality is far more complex than previously recognized

Measuring Socio-Economic GENDER Inequality: Toward an Alternative to the UNDP Gender-Related Development Index

This paper assesses the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Gender-Related Development Index (GDI). Although the GDI has increased attention on gender equality in human development, it suffers from several limitations. A major problem is that it conflates relative gender equality with absolute levels of human development and thus gives no information on comparative gender inequality among countries. Using the same indicators as the GDI, the paper constructs a Relative Status of Women (RSW) index, which demonstrates how using a measure of gender equality that abstracts from levels of development results in very different country rankings. However, the RSW is not an ideal measure of gender inequality. The GDI indicators are not the most appropriate ones for measuring gender inequality and hence both the RSW and the GDI have limited validity. The paper concludes by offering a conceptual framework that provides the basis for an alternative measure of gender inequality.

WE GOT OUR WAY OF COOKING THINGS

This article examines the significance of cultural practices related to food and women's role in the formation and continuance of these practices in Gullah communities in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. I argue that although food preparation, under pressure of dominant cultural practices, may be viewed as a measure of gender inequality and women's subordination in the household, analysis of the relationship between women and food preparation practices can broaden understanding of the construction and maintenance of tradition in marginalized cultural groups, a neglected aspect of the study of social organization within sociology. The study uses ethnographic data based on field observations and semistructured interviews with 22 women over several visits made between 1989 and 1992.

Gender Equality and the Sex Differential in Suicide Rates

Two measures of gender equality were not associated with the sex differential in suicide rates in 23 industrialized nations in 1985.

MOVING FROM `THE STATUS OF WOMEN' TO `GENDER INEQUALITY': CONCEPTUALISATION, SOCIAL INDICATORS AND AN EMPIRICAL APPLICATION

This paper extends the conceptualisation and refines the operationalisation of gender inequality. The aim is to bridge theory - on gender relations - and measurement - of the reality of gender for women and men - by means of a set of social indicators of gender inequality. We first elaborate the concept of gender inequality and differentiate it from `women's status'. Gender inequality is defined as the departure from parity in the representation of women and men in key dimensions of social life. Next, we operationalise the concept through a set of social indicators developed from statistics provided in the United Nations Women's Statistics and Indicators (WISTAT) database. The 21 indicators measure disparities in the distribution of women and men in socially valued positions in five dimensions - physical well-being, public power, family formation, education and economic activity - within two spheres: human rights and social relations. Finally, we apply the social indicators of gender inequality in a cross-national analysis of the disparities between women and men at different levels of national development. The findings reveal the dismal state of women's human rights across all levels of national income and the disadvantage women experience in the interconnection between social relations of production and reproduction in countries rich or poor. This more complex measure of gender inequality has the potential to inform policy and practices aimed at achieving gender equality.

Gender equality, legitimization of violence, social disorganization and rates of personal violence (suicide and homicide) in America.

Suicide rates were associated with measures of legitimate violence and social disorganization over the 48 continental American states, whereas homicide rates for 1980 were associated with a measure of gender equality.