Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomics

 From  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

Gender Statistics

All the efforts discussed last week come under the umbrella of gender statistics.  Gender statistics is a relatively new area of study relating to traditional areas of statistics as well as the statistical system as a whole.  Gender statistics refer to the situation of men and women in all policy areas and facilitate a study of gender inequalities and gender issues that goes beyond statistics disaggregated by sex. It also includes gender-specific publications and gender mainstreaming. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) notes the following reasons for why we need gender statistics.

One of the main contributions to gender statistics is the development of databases concerned with gender inequalities and gender issues. Key gender issues include:

Gender-related datasets identify gender inequalities, in terms of inputs and outcomes. A number of gender-related databases are in existence. The datasets are updated continuously as new data becomes available and new issues identified.  

The World Bank maintains the GenderStats database that offers statistical and other data in modules on several subjects – poverty, basic demographic, human development (education, health/nutrition, and population dynamics), socio-economic roles and access to economic resources, political participation, programs and policies – at the regional and country level. Coverage is sparse for some indicators and the time period is not very long.  This is a continuously updated database that draws on statistics from national statistics, United Nations databases and World Bank conducted or funded surveys. The World Bank also include data categories in GenderStats for which limited or no data exist; the idea is to illustrate the importance of collecting such data for gender disaggregated themes. For example, GenderStats also include the fields in Education Access and Attainment – progression to grade 5 (% of cohort), by male and female; primary completion rates (% relevant age group) by male and female and youth literacy rate (% people aged 15-24) by male and female.  

The United Nations Development Program maintains two important databases related to gender – the Gender-Related Development Measure (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report, the two measures have formed the backbone to subsequent gender-related human development analysis and policy discussions. A workshop sponsored by the Human Development Report Office marking the 10^th anniversary of the indices sought to identify areas for improvement and consider alternative measurement tools of gender equity.  The GDI and GEM were applied at the global level to rank 136 and 75 countries respectively for the 2006 Human Development Report.  The indices can also be applied at the national and sub-national levels for ethnic groups and age groups.  Both measures are considered part of the Human Development Indices published annually in the Human Development Report. The HDI measures the average achievement of a country in basic human capabilities defined as (i) a long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth; (ii) knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (2/3 weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (1/3 weight); and (iii) a decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (US$).