Journal of Human Development

Vol. 7, No. 2, July 2006

The Uses and Misuses of the Genderrelated Development Index and Gender
Empowerment Measure: A Review of the
Literature
LER
DANA SCHU
Dana Schu
ler is a researcher at the Development Economics Research Group
at the University of Go
ttingen, Germany
Abstract 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.
Key words: Gender-related Development Index, Gender Empowerment
Measure, Gender inequality

Introduction
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 GDI takes into account gender
inequality in its overall assessment of aggregate human development in
a country. It measures development in the same dimensions as the
Human Development Index (HDI), discounting them for gender inequality. The GEM is meant to measure whether women and men hold equal
power in the political and economic sphere. The two indexes were
created with the intention of attracting more attention to gender
inequality issues.
ISSN 1464-9888 print/ISSN 1469-9516 online/06/020161-21 # 2006 United Nations Development Programme
DOI: 10.1080/14649880600768496

D. Schu
ler
This paper is built upon an extensive literature review. First of all,
it examines the attention the indexes have received within the publications
of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) itself, concentrating on their use in national and subnational Human Development
Reports.1 It also reviews how the two indexes were used in academic
articles and the press. The main result of the review is that both indices,
seem to be rarely and inappropriately used. In most of the cases were a
misuse occurred, the GDI was wrongly interpreted as a measure of gender
inequality in itself. Therefore, the potential policy impact of the GDI in
particular seems questionable.
The paper is structured as follows. First of all, the next section
considers the correct interpretation of the GDI and GEM and explains
briefly how the measures are computed. A literature review of the
publications that have correctly addressed the GDI and/or the GEM
follows, while the fourth section focuses on their adoption in developing
countries. The fifth section summarizes alternative measures designed
to improve upon or widen the concepts encapsulated in the GDI and
GEM. Then, the subsequent section highlights the incorrect uses or
misuses that have been made of the UNDPs gender-related indices.
Finally, the seventh section evaluates the policy impact of the indexes and
concludes.

Correct use of the GDI and GEM

This section reviews briefly the correct interpretation of both indexes, the
GDI and the GEM, including how to interpret the gap between the GDI
and the HDI.2
One of the criticisms brought up about the HDI was that it does not
take into account inter-group inequality in a society, assuming that
everyone in the society has reached average achievements for the three
different components of the index (life expectancy, education and
income). However, given that there are differences in achievements in
the population, such differences should be taken into account if an
aversion to inequality between groups in a society exists. From this notion,
Anand and Sen (1995) developed the GDI. The idea is to penalize the
HDI if gender inequality exists in any of the three dimensions incorporated
in the HDI. The larger the gap between men and women in achievements
of life expectancy, education and income, the more the GDI differs from
the HDI. The gap between the HDI and GDI therefore depends on the
objective gender inequality between men and women in one of the
components of the HDI, as well as on the penalty given to this gender
inequality.
To compute the GDI, first of all indicators of achievement for men and
women are calculated separately. Secondly, based on Atkinsons method
of incorporating aversion to inequality (Atkinson, 1970), the equally
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distributed index is calculated for each component of the HDI as follows:



Equally Distributed Index~ female population share female index1{e




z male population share male index1{e g1=1{e
If e is equal to zero, then the simple arithmetic mean of female and male
achievements is calculated. The Human Development Report assumes an e
value of 2 indicating a social preference for equality. This step of the
calculation of the GDI has been misunderstood by most of the studies that
misuse the index (see later Common mistakes section).
The GDI therefore is to be interpreted as the HDI discounted for
gender disparities in its components and should not be interpreted
independently of the HDI. The gap between the HDI and the GDI is to be
interpreted as the loss of human development due to gender inequality
and the size of penalty given to gender inequality.
Finally, it is important to bear in mind that, as the methodology
changed in 1999, the GDI values before and after 1999 are not directly
comparable. The method of calculation changed due to a computational
misspecification pointed out in Bardhan and Klasen (1999). Only since
then have the HDI and the GDI been fully comparable. Before 1999 the
equally distributed income index was calculated using female and male
proportional income shares. In 1999 the method was changed to use the
female and male income index calculated in the same way as the income
index included in the HDI.
The GEM consists of three indicators: male and female shares of
parliamentary seats; male and female shares of administrative, professional,
technical, and managerial positions; and power over economic resources as
measured by womens and mens estimated earned income (Purchasing
Power parity, PPP US$).3 The GEM is meant to be interpreted as an index of
gender equity in political and economic participation and decision-making as
well as power over economic resources. However, due to a computational
misspecification, it cannot be interpreted as such. To be such a measure, the
income component of the GEM would have to be based on income shares not
on income levels (see Klasens contribution in the current JHD special issue).
The income component of the GEM differs from the other components in the
way it is calculated, incorporating an adjustment for overall income levels. As
highlighted by Klasen in his contribution in the current JHD issue, this is
problematic because a poor country can never achieve a high value for the
GEM even if equality of earned incomes occurred. Thus, changes in and
differences between countries in the GEM are only interpretable if the change/
difference is decomposed in changes/differences in female and male income
level and overall income level.

Literature review correct use examples

Not only have the GDI and GEM been used relatively rarely, but one also
has to search for examples where the GDI or GEM were used correctly.
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ler
This section describes publications that use the indexes correctly. As the
interpretation of the GEM is complex due to the aforementioned
computational shortcoming, all publications interpreting the GEM in the
way the UNDP (1995) intended it to be interpretable are also included in
this section.
Besides the Human Development Reports, the GDI and GEM seem to
have attracted minimal attention in the international press and, even more
importantly, the introduction of the indexes do not seem to have started a
public debate on the overall issue of gender inequality. In press articles, if
the GDI and GEM are mentioned, the focus is on the ranking of a specific
country compared with other countries without an analysis of the gender
situation in the country (The Economist, 2002; Manila Standard, 2003;
Korea Times, 2004; Central News Agency Taiwan, 2004; Global News
Bites The Nation, 2005).
In academia, the GDI and GEM elicited a series of papers that
evaluated their strengths and shortcomings. These papers are not
summarized here, as the focus of this paper is on the use of and not the
conceptual or methodological criticisms on the two measures. All other
papers that used the GDI correctly and interpreted the GEM in the same
way as already mentioned are included.
While several national and subnational Human Development Reports
have used the indexes, many did not report them at all. Among those that
did report them, some of them merely presented the values of the GDI or
GEM for their country at the national level, while others calculated the
indices at the level of the local government. In any case, the interest is in
those studies that analyzed gender-related development more deeply, by
not only reporting but also analyzing the indexes. These are cited below.

National Human Development Reports examples of good use

As already mentioned, the GDI needs to be compared with the HDI (either
using the difference or the ratio between the two). The GDI is not
interpretable in itself if conclusions about the welfare loss due to gender
inequality are to be drawn. This seems obvious. However, the later section
on misuses shows that it is not.
The 2004 National Human Development Report (NHDR) of Jordan
(UNDP, 2004c) and the 2003 NHDR of Bolivia (UNDP, 2003b) are
examples of reports that compare the GDI with the HDI for analysis of
gender issues. The illustration of the gap between the HDI and GDI in the
Jordan NHDR shows in which regions of the country the loss of human
development due to gender disparities is most severe. The Bolivian NHDR
shows the dynamics of GDI compared with the HDI between two points in
time, namely 1992 and 2001. The post-1999 computational method for the
GDI is used in both cases.
To draw conclusions on gender development from the GDI and the
HDI in a specific country, a detailed descriptive analysis of the data used
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for computation is necessary. The summary of the UNDP network
discussion on GDI and GEM in 2005 highlights that it is important not
only to focus on aggregate gender-sensitive measures but also to analyze
individual factors contributing to gender inequality. This is what the 2004
NHDR of Jordan (UNDP, 2004c) partially does. It calculates the gap
between male and female achievements in education by governorate. The
income component of the GDI is not presented disaggregated by gender,
but the GDP component of the HDI is compared with that of the GDI by
governorate. For interpretation of the gap between the two, unemployment statistics by gender and statistics on women labor force participation
are presented.
A good example of an extensive descriptive analysis can be found in
the 1999 NHDR of Cambodia (UNDP, 1999a). Regarding education, 1998
data on adult literacy and schooling attainment are disaggregated by
gender and income quintile. Age-specific gross enrolment rates show the
widening gap between males and females when age increases. In addition,
net enrolment rates are analyzed, school performance between males and
females is compared, and the reasons for gender disparity in school
enrolment and in economic returns to schooling are analyzed. The
chapters on employment and health and nutrition are equally at length.
When interpreting the GEM, a disaggregation of the figure into its
components and comparison of the trends in achievements between men
and women is equally important. None of the reports shows trends in both
male and female achievements. For instance, the 2004 NHDR of Indonesia
(UNDP, 2004b) presents figures of the GEM by province for the years 1999
and 2002. The falls in the GEM in nine provinces were analyzed to reflect
changes in the proportion of women in DPRDs the Regional
Parliaments of Indonesia. The 1999 NHDR of Cambodia (UNDP, 1999a)
uses the GEM to evaluate the position of the country in Asia, finding that
its score is among the lowest. The report also shows that GDP per capita is
not strongly correlated with the GEM in the Asian region.

Academic articles
The analysis of the GDI and GEM in academic articles can be classified in
three categories. Firstly, some papers have analyzed what the GDI and
GEM actually measure. The question behind the analysis is whether the
two measures significantly add new information to what is provided by the
HDI or GDP per capita (PPP adjusted). For instance, McGillivray and
Pillarisetti (2003) analyze whether the GDI and GEM provide insights in
this respect. The authors test, using the Pearson zero-order correlation
coefficient and the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient, whether
the extent of redundancy justifies the effort involved in calculating and
reporting the new indicator, introducing a threshold to define redundancy. The results indicate that the GDI is practically indistinguishable
empirically from the HDI. The GEM is a more insightful indicator, when
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compared with GDP per capita. For the low human development country
group, it is significantly negative correlated to GDP per capita. The paper
also offers a series of more demanding tests, such as the constant and
slope coefficient test and the proxy variable test. Here the results are
mixed. For the medium development group, the hypothesis that GEM or
GDI and HDI are the same variable could not be rejected. The authors
conclude that based on simple measures of statistical association, GDI and
GEM provide few new insights into ordinal and cardinal well-being
achievements.
As UNDPs composite indicators were introduced because of
discontent with real GDP per capita as a sole indicator of well-being, it
is interesting to compare degrees of inter-country inequality in these
indicators of human development. Ogwang (2000) compares inter-country
inequality in the HDI, GDI, GEM and two measures of GDP per capita. The
coefficient of variation, income-weighted Theil-1 and population-weighted
Theil-2 index is calculated for all five measures of well-being. The number
of countries for which inter-country inequality is computed varies
according to the availability of data and is lowest for the GEM, with 94
countries. Inter-country inequality in real GDP per capita is found to be
higher than in all three human development indicators. Moreover, the GDI
and GEM present higher degrees of inequality than the HDI, with the GEM
exhibiting the highest degree of inter-country inequality out of the three
indices. This supports the argument that both the GDI and the GEM (but
mostly the second) add new information to the comparison of human
development between countries.
McGillivray and Pillarisetti (1998) examine the determinants of the
GEM. Using a cross-sectional database of 116 countries, they find that
there is a significantly negative relationship between fertility rate and
gender empowerment. This is in line with UNESCOs (2003) report, which
similarly finds evidence of the positive correlation between fertility
decline and womens empowerment. On the other hand, the relationship between empowerment and female labor force participation is
significantly positive. Direction of causality is not analyzed further in either
case.
The second group of papers analyze gender differences in a specific
thematic field, such as the health sector or the labor market, and try to give
an indication of whether the GDI or the GEM tap these observed gender
differences. However, these papers interpret the GDI or the gap between
the GDI and HDI wrongly. For instance, Blackburn and Jarman (2005)
create a measure of segregation; that is, a measure of the tendency for men
and women to be employed in different occupations. The authors examine
the relationship of this measure with the GDI and GEM. Both indexes are
higher in countries with higher female employment rates in the formal
sector. The findings indicate that the GDI and GEM are highly positively
correlated with gender segregation in 16 industrialized countries for the
year 2000. The authors highlight that this result is surprising since theory
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would assume that segregation comes at a disadvantage for womens
empowerment. Hank and Ju
rges (2005) find that a higher level of gender
empowerment as measured by the GEM is positively associated with a
more equal division of labor in the household.
The third category of papers comprises those that aim to analyze the
impact of certain policies on the improvement of gender empowerment.4
Carreiras (2005) constructs a measure of gender inclusiveness in the
military, shedding light on how human development and gender
empowerment are correlated with a symmetric situation of women in
armed forces compared with men.
This section has shown that the use of the GDI and GEM has been
limited. The reason for this might be their limited informational and
empirical value added, as revealed by some of the aforementioned articles.
Even in the national and subnational Human Development Reports, the
indicators rarely constituted a starting point for an extensive and sound
analysis of gender inequality.

Adoption of the GDI and GEM in developing countries

The choice of indicators in the GDI and GEM is not always suited for
developing countries. Therefore, when the data are available, it
makes sense to widen the analysis to sectors and political levels that
are perceived as important there, but are not included in the GDI and
GEM.
The Human Development Reports produced in several Indian states
usually use data on representation in regional parliaments for assessing
womens empowerment. The 2004 West Bengal HDR (UNDP, 2004e), for
example, presents figures of percentage participation of women in Gram
Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis, and Zilla Parishads. Whereas representation of women in the national parliament in India is minor, the
figures for panchayats indicate a considerable participation of women at
lower levels of political bodies (even by 1993, 35.5% of all members in
Gram Panchayats, 34.6% in Panchayat Samitis, and 36.1% in Zilla
Parishads were women). In 2003 the Indian government decided to
reserve women 33 percent of seats in local municipal bodies (for example
in Panchayats). The 2002 Maharashtra HDR (UNDP, 2002b) presents a less
optimistic picture of womens empowerment in 2001. The report
concludes that women panchayati members face male resistance, which
makes it difficult for them to take independent decisions.
The GDI and GEM use an estimation of non-agricultural wage for the
computation of the income component. The rural agricultural sector,
however, is an important source of employment for women. The 2004
West Bengal HDR (UNDP, 2004e) therefore describes the employment
trends for men and women in rural as well as urban areas.
Other subnational Human Development Reports Himachal Pradesh
2002 (UNDP, 2002a) and Tamil Nadu 2003 (UNDP, 2003e) also present
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figures on women employment and political empowerment, including for
example voting percentages Tamil Nadu.
The lack of subnational data on gender in the political sphere hinders
the adoption of the GEM in some Indian state Human Development
Reports. For the GDI these restrictions do not bind.

New measures inspired by the GDI and GEM

There are two types of newly created gender-related measures. On the one
hand, there are measures that incorporate new dimensions not included
in the GDI or GEM and that have been tailored to evaluate more
realistically the gender situation in specific regions of the world.5 On the
other hand, the need to create a direct measure of gender inequality has
motivated another range of papers.
Concerning the first category of measures, several of the national and
subnational reports introduced new indicators, as it was felt that the GDI
and GEM did not reflect the specific issues and concerns of a developing
economy.
The 2004 Gujarat HDR (UNDP, 2004a) introduces the Gender
Development Measure-1 (GDM-1) and the Gender Equity Index (GEI).
The GDM-1 measure has the same components as the Human
Development Measure (HDM-1), with the exception of per-capita
expenditure. GDM-1 consists of the following components: education as
measured by (a) adult literacy rate and (b) combined enrolment ratio;
ability to lead a long and healthy life as measured by (a) life expectancy at
birth, (b) incidence of disability and (c) incidence of morbidity; availability
of housing and related facilities as measured by (a) availability of a durable
house and (b) availability of water, electricity and sanitation; and
participation as measured by (a) the work participation rate of main
workers, (b) the percentage of electors voting and (c) contestants in
elections per lakh population. The GDM-1 is calculated by first computing
the indexes for men and women separately and then calculating the
equally distributed index for each component. The GDM-1 is a simple
average of the four indexes.
The GEI, which has the same components as the GDM-1, calculates
the ratio of malefemale achievements for each indicator and then
averages the indicators in each component. The first obvious drawback of
the GDM-1 is that it does not include the same standard of living indicators
as does the HDM-1 and thus both indicators cannot be compared.
Secondly, the measure mixes two dimensions: basic capabilities and
womens empowerment. The GDI and GEM separate these two
dimensions. As it is possible that different countries have gender equality
in basic capabilities, but look very different in the dimension of
empowerment, the separation of the two dimensions is preferable.
Thirdly, the inclusion of empowerment indicators might exacerbate the
fact of a possible substitution of a high achievement in one indicator and
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low in another. The GEI is more useful, as it is a measure of gender
inequality. However, the same criticism as for the GDM-1 on mixing two
dimensions holds here.
Dholakia (2005) similarly suggests a widening of the GDI. The
Modified Gender-related Development Index (MGDI) adds two variables
to the original index: gender-specific percentages in ministerial
positions, and gender-specific economic participation rates. An equally
distributed equivalent achievement is calculated for each variable. The
MGDI is then a simple average of all indexes. Different to the HDI and
GDI, it is assumed that the female and male population is distributed
equally, assuming a weight of 0.5. Again the same criticism as for the GEI
applies.
Another indicator proposed in the same paper is the Equally
Distributed Gender-related Development Index (EDGDI), which adds
fertility to the set of variables. As there are six variables for females and
only five for men, the indexes are first calculated for males and females
separately for each variable and then averaged to yield an aggregate male
and female index. Using the aggregate male and female index, the equally
distributed equivalent achievement is calculated, which is similar to the
EDGI. A low fertility rate is interpreted as favorable for the empowerment
of women. The inclusion of this variable poses several problems. First of
all, low fertility rates in developed countries hint also at difficulties for
women to combine career and children. Secondly, the inclusion of this
variable rewards countries such as China with its One-Child-Policy, which
cannot be interpreted as an empowerment of women.
Other papers tried to improve on the existing GEM. Mehta (1996)
constructs three measures of gender empowerment for developing
countries. The GEM-1 is the average of five indexes for: political
decision-making, relative exercise of the right to vote, relative life
expectancy, relative literacy rate, and per-capita income share. The
indicators of political decision-making are: relative representation of
women in Lok Sabah, legislature, Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and
Zilla Parishad. The GEM-2 takes the average of one index of political
decision-making and the four indexes for literacy, life expectancy, income
and casting of the vote. It gives 20% weight to each of the five indicators.
The GEM-3 is based on different weights for each of the nine indicators.6
The three new GEMs are used to assess the situation of empowerment in
16 states of India. Kerala ranks the first for all the three measures, and
Maharashtra second. Some states, for instance Assam and Uttar Pradesh,
rank differently for all the three measures. The incorporation of relative
life expectancy in a measure of empowerment might be questionable.
Furthermore, the weighting of GEM-2 and GEM-3 seems subjective. On the
other hand, the inclusion of the variables relative excise of the right to
vote and representation of women in regional parliaments might be an
improvement over the GEM in order to assess empowerment at the
subnational level in a developing country.
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Time use is considered an important dimension of inequality between
women and men in developing as well as developed counties.7 In order to
assess the real workload of women compared with men, time-use statistics
are necessary. A large proportion of women are active in the informal
sector. If data on activities in the informal sector are available, the
distinction between household and business activity may be unclear. For
this reason, it is difficult to value womens work. Bhatia (2002) creates the
Gender Disparity Index by averaging four indexes based on the absolute
difference of weekly average time spent by a man and a woman on
different activities (SNA [System of National Accounts], extended SNA,
non-SNA activities and unpaid SNA). SNA activities are defined as (I)
primary production activities, (II) secondary activities, and (III) trade,
business and services. Extended SNA activities are (I) household
maintenance, management, and shopping for own household; (II) care
for children, the sick, elderly and disabled in the own household; and (III)
community services and help of other households. Non-SNA activities are
(I) learning activities; (II) social and cultural activities, mass media
consumption; and (III) personal care and self-maintenance. The four
indexes are calculated using the formula:
xij {xmin
Iij ~
xmax {xmin
where i is the state, j is the indicator and xj represents the absolute
difference of time spent by men and women in the three different
categories. Not surprisingly, the paper finds that women spent a lot more
time than men in unpaid work.
As mentioned earlier, the GDI and GEM do not adequately reflect the
gender situation in developed countries either. Kjeldstad and Kristiansen
(2001) develop a regional gender equality index for the communities of
Norway to measure the status of women. Three types of indicators are
included: a demographic indicator; welfare and economic indicators; and
administrative indicators. The demographic indicator included is defined
as the number of women per 100 men aged 2039 years. The rationale is
that adult women move out of communities that fail to offer suitable
employment to find a job elsewhere. The administrative indicators include
the percentage of preschool children enrolled in publicly approved
daycare institutions and the female percentage of municipal council
members. Daycare coverage is placed in the responsibility of municipalities. Therefore it is assumed that a high coverage implies a good gender
equality climate. Secondly, a high coverage permits mothers to combine
childcare and paid work. It is further assumed that a high female
percentage of municipal council members is accompanied with a relatively
high legitimacy of gender equality policies in the community. The other
indicators are sex disaggregated educational, income and labor force
participation rates.
The misinterpretations of the GDI highlight the need for the
construction of an indicator that directly measures gender inequality.
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There are several papers that already proposed such a gender inequality
indicator.
Akder (1994) shows that the HDI can be disaggregated by groups in a
society treating each group as if it were a separate country. Some NHDRs
calculate the HDI for men and for women separately. For example, the
1996 NHDR of Turkey finds a significant lower HDI for women (0.648)
than for men (0.824) at the national level. Conversely, the 2003
Kazakhstan (UNDP, 2003d) NHDR presents an slightly lower HDI for
men (0.768) than for women (0.787) for the year 2002: women seem to
have advantages in life expectancy and education that are not offset by the
disadvantages in income.
Dijkstra and Hanmer (2000) construct the Relative Status of Women
(RSW) index, which uses the same indicators as the GDI. The RSW index is
calculated as follows:


1 Ef
Lf
wf
z
z
RSW~
3 Em Lm wm
where Ef and Em are male and female educational attainment indexes, Lf
and Lm are the male and female life expectancy index, and wf and wm are
the male and female rate of return to labor time. The indexes for males
and females are calculated in exactly the same way as they are for the GDI.
Dijkstra (2002) creates the Standardized Index of Gender Equality
(SIGE) with the aim to avoid the methodological limitations of GDI and
GEM. The SIGE consists of five indicators: education, health, labor market
participation, share in higher labor market occupations/positions and
share in parliament. Indicators are defined as the relative achievement of
females to males for the first three indicators and as the female share for
the last two. For each country and indicator the resulting score is
standardized by expressing the score as number of deviations from the
mean of scores of all countries. The index is a simple arithmetic average of
the standardized scores.
Social Watch (2005) developed the GEI as a direct measure of gender
equality. The index has three dimensions: education, economic participation and empowerment. Gender equity in the education dimension is
measured as the female-to-male ratio in literacy rates and in enrolment
rates at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. In the economic
participation dimension, the percentage of women in total paid jobs
(excluding the agricultural sector) and the ratio of female income to male
income are used. Empowerment is measured by the percentage of women
in high administrative and management positions, in parliament and in
decision-making posts at the ministerial level. The GEI is the simple
average of the indicators for the three dimensions.
The latter two measures differ from the previous one, in that they mix
dimensions of empowerment and capabilities. Again, the convenience of
doing so is questionable. As already mentioned, it is possible for a country
to have achieved high levels of gender equality in basic capabilities, while
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ler
women remain disempowered. Therefore, the separation of the two
dimensions seems preferable.
The Economic Commission for Africa (2004) introduced the African
Gender and Development Index (AGDI) in 2004, which is a composite
index that has two parts: the Gender Status Index (GSI) and the African
Womens Progress Scoreboard (AWPS). The former incorporates elements
of basic capabilities, economic power and political power, using several
indicators to measure them:

N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N

enrolment rates, dropout rates, and literacy rates in the category

education;
child health indicators, life expectancy at birth, new HIV infection, time
spent out of work in the category of health;
wages in formal, agricultural, and informal sector;
income from formal, agricultural, and informal enterprise and from
remittances;
time use for market, non-market, and leisure activities;
employment;
access to resources including access to management positions; and
political power as measured by positions held in public sector and civil
society institutions.

For every variable the female-to-male ratio is calculated. The GSI is a

weighted average of the indicators. For details on the weighting
procedure, see Economic Commission for Africa (2004).
The AWPS measures government policy performance regarding
womens advancement and empowerment in four areas: womens rights,
capabilities, economic opportunities and political power. It tracks government progress in ratifying relevant conventions such as the Convention on
the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women and in the
implementation of policies in line with international charters or policy
documents on such issues as violence against women, health or education.
The AGDI, which combines the above indexes into one by averaging
over the GSI and the AWPS, has been piloted in 12 countries. The value of
the index resides in its comprehensiveness. Disaggregated scrutiny of the
subcomponents of the GSI is necessary for judging the performance of
countries.
The work by Sugarman and Straus (1987) was one of the earliest
studies that developed an empirical measure of gender empowerment
similar the AGDI. Di Noia (2002) updates this measure using different data
sources or substituting some indicators. The so-called Gender Equality
Measure consists of seven indicators of economic gender equality, four
indicators of political gender equality and 13 indicators of legal gender
equality. The legal indicators included are what distinguish this measure
from the GEM. A value of one was assigned to a state if the appropriate
statute (e.g. providing warrantless arrest based on probable cause in
domestic violence cases) was present. Sex discrimination laws were also
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taken into account (e.g. in the area of financing). For the economic and
political gender equality indicators the attainment of women relative to
that of men was calculated. The exact procedure of how to compute the
index can be found in the two papers. The Gender Equality Measure of
Sugarman and Strauss therefore measures the extent to which women
have the same access as men to economic resources, legal rights, or
positions of political power.
There are a range of other papers that also dealt with the question of
which dimensions to include in a measure of gender inequality. For
example, Wieringa (1999) presents the Gender Equality Index, a comprehensive measure that consists of the following components: gender identity,
autonomy of the body, autonomy within the family and the household,
political power, social resources, material resources, employment and
income, and time.8 So far, to our knowledge, the index has not been
computed for a country. See also Malhotra et al. (2002) for a review of empirical measures of empowerment used at the micro-level and the macro-level.
Furthermore, several studies create indicators of empowerment at the
micro-level.9 Ackerley (1995), for example, analyzes empowerment in credit
programs. Her measure of empowerment is derived by interviewing
borrowers about their knowledge on input costs, product yield, and
profitability of the loan-funded activity. If the interviewee could answer a set
of questions she scored one, and zero otherwise. Ackerley finds that credit
programs that encourage and enable women to participate directly in the
activity funded by their loan, are those that are most successful in empowering women. See also Oxaal and Baden (1997) for a review of other studies.
This section has shown that there is a wide range of papers proposing
new measures. These can be classified in two types. Firstly, there are
papers that directly try to widen the GDI or the GEM by the inclusion of
new dimensions. On this regard, some measures have been proposed to
improve on the GDI and GEM in order to better take into account the
gender situation in specific regions of the world. Secondly, there are
papers that propose direct measures of gender inequality by, for example,
calculating the female-to-male ratios for the dimensions of the GDI. These
direct measures of gender inequality are deemed as highly useful. This is
because, as highlighted in the next section, there is demand for a direct
measure of gender inequality, rather than a measure that adjusts overall
levels of well being for gender inequality.

Common mistakes
The most common mistake made in studies using the GDI was to interpret
it as a measure of gender inequality. Furthermore, most studies present
both correct and incorrect interpretations. From this fact it can be
gathered that the formula of computation of the GDI is not understood
very well, while there is a strong demand for a direct measure of gender
inequality.
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D. Schu
ler
The 1999 NHDR of Kenya states the gender development index
(GDI) has been designed to measure gender disparities in the level of
achievement in human development (UNDP, 1999b, p. 62). The 2003
NHDR of Kenya (UNDP, 2003c) describes the GDI as a measure that
captures the differences between the achievements of women and men.
Moreover, the report wrongly states that a value close to one signifies
achievement of equality for women and men. However, the next sentence
continues with the correct interpretation and states that the GDI is a
measure of human development adjusted for gender inequality. The 2004
NHDR of Macedonia also states first, correctly, that the GDI makes an
adjustment for the average achievements, but continues wrongly: and
shows the inequality between women and men in major human
development areas(UNDP, 2004d, p. 37). The 2002 HDR of Rajasthan
(UNDP, 2002c) defines the GDI as an adjusted version of the HDI
reflecting gender inequalities, interpreting its individual values rather than
comparing them with the HDI. Other examples include the 2005 NHDR of
Albania (UNDP, 2005a), the 2004 subnational Human Development Report
of West Bengal (UNDP, 2004e), and the 2002 subnational Human
Development Report of Himachal Pradesh (UNDP, 2002a).
In academic articles using the indexes the same mistake is common.
For instance, Blackburn and Jarman (2005, p. 4) interpret the GDI and
GEM as two measures constructed to indicate the extent to which
national labor markets approach gender equality. This interpretation
would be partially correct for the GEM but definitely incorrect for the GDI.
Fernandez et al. (2005) intend to analyze, among other things, the
relationship between marital sorting and gender inequality, interpreting
the GDI as a measure of gender inequality and female status. The findings
are that the GDI, ratio of female-to-male enrolment rates, and the
percentage of female labor force affect marital sorting in a significantly
negative way. The frequency of this misinterpretation is further indicated
by a list of papers in which the same mistake is found: Berger (2002),
Wieringa (1997), Kabeer (1999), Oudhof (2001), Pollert (2005), Saith and
Harris-White (1999), United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (2005), Yu and Sarri (1997), and Kodoth and Eapen
(2005). For instance, the latter affirm that the Indian state of Kerala has
been considered relatively free from restrictions against women, and verify
this with the GDI ranking of Kerela on top of other states. Even the World
Bank states that the GDI is a measure of gender disparity (2002, p. 2).
Interestingly, as White (1997) highlights, the 1995 Human
Development Report, which introduced the measure, was the first to
mistakenly interpret the GDI as a measure of gender inequality. Several
statements in the report are misleading:
1. No society treats its women as well as its men. This is obvious from
the GDI value. A value of 1.00 reflects a maximum achievement in basic
capabilities with perfect gender equality. But no society achieves such a
value(UNDP, 1995, p. 75). This statement suggests that the GDI is
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interpretable in itself and the higher its value, the lower is gender
inequality. Looking at the GDI value by itself does not tell anything
about the state of gender inequality in a society. A society with no
gender inequality can still have a low GDI due to low level of overall
human development.
2. Gender equality does not depend on the income level of a society
China is ten ranks above (GDI: comment of the author) Saudi Arabia,
although its real per capita income is only a fifth of Saudi Arabias
(UNDP, 1995, pp. 7678). Again the GDI is interpreted in itself and as a
direct measure of gender inequality.
3. The GDI values of all countries have improved since 1970. Not a
single country has slipped back in the march towards greater gender
inequality (UNDP, 1995, p. 78).
The 2000 Human Development Report also makes incorrect statements in
this respect: Of the 143 countries, as many as 30 have a GDI value of less
than 0.50, showing that women in these countries suffer the double
deprivation of low overall achievement in human development and lower
achievement than men (UNDP, 2000, p. 153).
Another misleading interpretation firstly found in the 1995 Human
Development Report is the following:
4.

One way of gauging the gender inequality in a country is to compare

its GDI value with its HDI value. This can be simply done by taking the
percentage reduction of the GDI from the HDI, or: (HDI-GDI)/HDI
(UNDP, 1995, p. 79).

This percentage gap between the GDI and HDI is to be interpreted as the
aggregate welfare loss due to gender inequality, and the penalty given to
gender inequality in the dimensions included. Other papers that used this
formula also interpreted the percentage gap between the GDI and HDI in
wrongly. White (1997) states that the ratio of the GDI to the HDI is a
measure of gender disadvantage. Forsythe et al. (2003) assess the level of
gender inequality in the countries by calculating the aforementioned
formula. The Philippine 1997 NHDR (UNDP, 1997) also interprets the
percentage gap as a measure of gender disparity.
Equally impossible is to interpret a rise in the GDI without looking at
the dynamics of the HDI. The 2004 NHDR of Jordan (UNDP, 2004c), for
example, states that the rise in its GDI indicates that gender equality
appears to have improved. As shown in the third section, few reports
analyze the dynamics of GDI and HDI in comparison.
Nowhere is there perfect equality in all three dimensions of the GDI.
As the GDI is a 1 e average of female and male achievement indexes, the
GDI can only be lower than the HDI or equal to the HDI. Several NHDRs
nevertheless present figures where the GDI exceeds the HDI. This is likely
to be due to the use of different data for computation of HDI and GDI.
None of these NHDRs points at this issue and questions the data used for
calculation of the GDI. It could also be due to computational error. What is
175

D. Schu
ler
the reason cannot be explored due to lack of information in the reports.
The reports where this mistake was found are the following:

The 2005 NHDR of Albania (UNDP, 2005a) calculates the HDI and GDI
for different regions. In Tirana the GDI has a value of 0.864 and an HDI
of 0.830 for 2004. The reason might be that the indexes are based on
different data sources. The GDI is not compared with the HDI and is
interpreted wrongly as a measure that captures differences in the
achievements of men and women.
The 2004 Indonesian HDR (UNDP, 2004b) analyzes gender issues by
comparing the HDI and GDI. However, for the district Kota Kediri the
HDI is given with a value of 0.661 and the GDI with a value of 0.691 for
2002. In the same table the variable inputs for both measures are listed
for both men and women. The district shows highly unequal values in
all three variables for men and women.
Most striking is this problem in the 2003 Indian subnational Human
Development Report of Assam (UNDP, 2003a). On page 110 a table
with the values of GDI and HDI for all districts is given. Excluding
the last five districts listed, the GDI exceeds the HDI in every district.
In the North Carcha Hills the GDI has a value of 0.877 and the HDI
a value of 0.363. The 2002 subnational Human Development
Report of Himachal Pradesh (UNDP, 2002a) includes the same
problem.
The 1998 NHDR of Cambodia (UNDP, 1998) highlights the point that
the aggregate GDI is slightly higher than the HDI in 1997. In a
disaggregation of the GDI for rural and urban areas as well as by
quintile, it becomes clear that the GDI is higher than the HDI
for every category. The report continues with presenting extensive descriptive statistics on achievements of men compared with
women for each category included in the GDI. This analysis shows
that there are large gender gaps in literacy and school enrolment at
each level that discriminate against women. Furthermore, female
monthly earnings are substantially lower than those of males, even if
they are in the same age group and have the same educational
achievements.10

Some NHDRs do present a simple correlation between GDP on one hand

and the GDI, GEM, and HDI on the other 1998 and 1999 Cambodia
NHDRs (UNDP, 1998, 1999a) and 2005 Korea NHDR (UNDP, 2005c). This
correlation is then sometimes interpreted as a causal relationship. The
2005 NHDR of Korea states that the correlation between the GDP, the
HDI, and the GDI turned out to be highly positive, which meant that
economic affluence is a prerequisite in achieving human development
(UNDP 2005c, p. 19). The income index of the GDI for males and females
is based upon female and male total GDP. The same does apply for the
GEM. Therefore it is clear that the correlation between GDP, the HDI, the
GDI, and the GEM will not be low.11
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Uses and Misuses of the GDI and GEM

Impact on policy and conclusions

Due to many misinterpretations of the GDI, and the low attention the GDI
and GEM attracted in the international press, the policy impact the two
measures can have seems questionable. Secondly, the GDI and GEM were
criticized because they do not adequately reflect gender inequality
dimensions neither in developing countries, nor in developed nations.
Finally, shortcomings in the analysis of gender issues in national and
subnational reports not only reflected in the lack of adequate data, but
also in the lack of deeper descriptive analysis using the existing data
reduce the possibilities for their influence on policy.
The network discussion on the GDI and GEM (UNDP, 2005d)
reviewed experiences of the policy impact of the two indices. The
summary of responses states that the impact of GDI and GEM seems to
have been limited in Central and Eastern Europe, but also for most of the
other regions no impact on policy was reported. This is also the result of
the review of studies for this paper. In contrast, the summary report of the
discussion (UNDP, 2005d) highlights the example of Korea, where the
GEM has been used directly for lobbying purposes. The government has
responded by taking action against the low representation of women in
political and economic sectors.
In conclusion, it can be said that the GDI is a measure prone to
misinterpretation. Moreover, the misuses highlight the demand for a direct
measure of gender inequality. One measure that could be easily obtained
is calculating the average of the female-to-male ratios for the variables
included in the GDI.
The GEM is also incorrectly interpreted due to the computational
feature of the income component. There is only one recommendation in
this case. The GEM would be much more consistent if the income
component were based purely on male and female income shares (see
Klasens contribution in this JHD special issue).
Finally, many papers that proposed direct measures of gender
inequality also proposed to mix the dimensions included in the GDI and
the GEM. However, keeping two distinct measures is preferable, since the
separate interpretation of these dimensions is more informative.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Stephan Klasen, Susana Franco, Tim Scott,
Sarah Burd-Sharps and all the other participants at the workshop to review
the GDI and GEM, organized by HDRO in New York, 2021 January, for
helpful comments. Furthermore, the author would like to thank Klaus
Seipp for assistance in the literature search. The author would also like to
acknowledge the Government of The Netherlands for their support for this
paper through UNDPs Gender Thematic Trust Fund.
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D. Schu
ler

Notes
1 The term subnational reports is used here to refer to the reports that have been
produced in several Indian states.
2 For a detailed explanation on how to calculate the indices, see the appendix to the
guest editors introduction to this Journal of Human Development (JHD) issue, or the
technical note in UNDP (2005b).
3 The GEM uses unadjusted incomes: no logarithmic transformation of income is made.
For more details on its calculation see the appendix to the Editors Introduction in the
current JHD issue.
4 The third category of papers also comprises those that aim to analyze the impact of
certain policies on the improvement of gender inequality. These papers interpret the
GDI wrongly as a measure of gender inequality. For instance, Schnepf (2004) analyzes
whether reform policies in transition countries lead to an improvement in the GEM,
GDI and a measure of the loss in human development due to gender inequality.
5 A drawback of such a measure is that only similar countries can be compared using the
measure. Hence, the value of global gender indicators that allow comparisons for all
countries is not questioned.
6 The weights are as follows: 0.05 for the indexes of political decision-making, 0.15 for
the index of life expectancy and that of casting a vote, 0.20 for the index of literacy, and
0.25 for the index of income.
7 Another dimension that is perceived as very important when trying to measure
womens status in society is violence against women. However, it is impossible to
include this by now due to lack of data.
8 The ideas for the components of the Gender Equality Index were collectively
formulated during a workshop held in The Hague in January 1997.
9 Ackerley (1995), for example, analyzes empowerment in credit programs. His measure
of empowerment is derived by interviewing the borrowers about their knowledge
about input costs, product yield, and profitability of the loan-funded activity. If the
interviewee could answer a set of questions she was scored with a one, and a zero
otherwise. Ackerley finds that credit programs that encourage and enable women to
participate directly in the activity funded by their loan are those that are most successful
in empowering women.
The briefing written by Oxaal and Baden (1997) reviews some of the studies. Hashemi
et al. (1996) used a model based on eight indicators of empowerment in their study of
rural Bangladesh: mobility, economic security, ability to make small purchases, ability
to make larger purchases, involvement in major household decisions, relative freedom
from domination within the family, political and legal awareness, and involvement in
political campaigning and protests. Furthermore, the Canadian International
Development Agencys (CIDA) approach of measuring empowerment is introduced.
The CIDA measures empowerment in the legal, political, economic and social
dimension. Social empowerment, for, instance is measured by the extent of training
and networking among local women, as compared with men.
10 Time worked was not taken into account.
11 To evaluate the contribution of GDP on gender inequality, one could analyze whether
increases in GDP result in a higher share of womens GDP per capita compared with that
of men; that is, whether women disproportionably gain from increased income
compared with men. Otherwise, there would be the possibility of investigating in which
way changes in the gap between GDI and HDI are related to changes in GDP per capita.
For analyzing the relationship between income and gender inequality in economic
status, the earnings gap between males and females would be one possible indicator.

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