Erratum to: The Measurement of Multidimensional Gender Inequality: Continuing the Debate

The measurement of multidimensional gender inequality is an increasingly important topic that has very relevant policy applications and implications but which has not received much attention from the academic literature. In this paper I make a comprehensive and critical review of the indices proposed in recent years in order to systematise the different underlying ideas. I also present new gender inequality indices that overcome some limitations of the preceding ones. Using United Nations data, empirical results for the new indicators are provided, suggesting that the choice of one indicator or another can make an important difference for the ranking of those countries that have achieved high levels of gender equality.     

The Measurement of Non-economic Inequality in Well-Being Indices

This paper is a critical review of composite well-being indices that account for inequality. Many well-being indices build upon the idea that while income and wealth are important, they do not constitute a person’s actual quality of life. However, first of all, the analysis finds that while well-being indices aim to go “beyond GDP” and other primarily economic indicators, many of them, unfortunately, do not focus on inequality at all. Secondly, most indices which include inequality in their measurement, only account for economic inequality. Thirdly, the article finds that the most comprehensive wellbeing index in terms of inequality is the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index which adjusts for economic, health and education inequality. This article finds that well-being indices should make further strides to ensure the capture of non-economic inequality in terms of education and health.     

The Variance as a subgroup decomposable measure of inequality

An inequality index is called subgroup decomposable if it can be expressed as a weighted sum of inequality values calculated for population subgroups plus the contribution arising out of differences among subgroup means. Theil (1967) and Shorrocks (1980) pointed out two important requirements for subgroup decomposable inequality indices. Shorrocks (1980) has shown that Theil's mean logarithmic deviation, for which the weights of subgroup terms are respective population shares, is the only relative inequality index that fulfils these two properties. In this paper we show that the variance is the only absolute inequality index to satisfy the population share weighted subgroup decomposability property, which in turn implies that it also meets the two properties suggested by Theil and Shorrocks. A numerical illustration of several inequality indices in also presented in the paper. JEL classification numbers:D31, D63.     

Inequality and crime revisited: effects of local inequality and economic segregation on crime

Economic inequality has long been considered an important determinant of crime. Existing evidence, however, is mostly based on inadequately aggregated data sets, making its interpretation less than straightforward. Using tract- and county-level U.S. Census panel data, I decompose county-level income inequality into its within- and across-tract components and examine the extent to which county-level crime rates are influenced by local inequality and economic segregation. I find that the previously reported positive correlation between violent crime and economic inequality is largely driven by economic segregation across neighborhoods instead of within-neighborhood inequality. Moreover, there is little evidence of a significant empirical link between overall inequality and crime when county- and time-fixed effects are controlled for. On the other hand, a particular form of economic inequality, namely, poverty concentration, remains an important predictor of county-level crime rates.     

The European Gender Equality Index: Conceptual and Analytical Issues

This article presents a composite indicator designed to measure and compare existing structural gender equality in the countries of the European Union. The construction of an index is always a complex task which requires making a great many important conceptual, analytical and empirical decisions. This complexity explains the wide variety of gender equality indices created during the last 25?years. All the proposed indices attempt to measure the same thing, gender (in)equality, but none of them define the concept they want to measure in exactly the same way, nor do they operationalize measurement in the same manner. Taking into account the methodology of these preceding approaches, this article explains the basis for the most important analytical and conceptual decisions made in constructing the European Gender Equality Index. The article also includes the overall scores obtained by the 27 European countries on this index, on its three basic dimensions (education, work and power), and on the eighteen indicators that make up its structure. With this data, corresponding to 2009, an adequate analysis of gender equality in Europe can be established.     

Cross-National Indices with Gender-Differentiated Data: What Do They Measure? How Valid Are They?

The two cross-national indices with gender-differentiated data introduced by the UNDP in 1995, as well as several other such indices developed subsequently, are an important resource for researchers and policy makers interested in gender disparities. Yet questions remain regarding how these indices should be interpreted and how valid they are. Relying on a framework that synthesizes key guidelines concerning the methodology of measurement, this article offers an assessment of indices currently used to study gender disparities on a global scale and sheds light on these unresolved questions. We answer two questions—what do these indices with gender-differentiated data actually measure? and, how valid are these indices?—and discuss the implications of our assessment for users and producers of gender indices.     

The Multidimensional Gender Inequalities Index (MGII): A Descriptive Analysis of Gender Inequalities Using MCA

This paper constructs a weighted measure of the multidimensional concept of gender inequality: the Multidimensional Gender Inequality Index (MGII). Multiple Correspondence Analysis is used to rank the separate forms in which gender inequality appears in developed and developing countries respectively. Eight dimensions were identified as relevant for economic purposes: identity, physical integrity, intra-family laws, political activity, education, health, access to economic resources, and economic activity. In the 109 developing countries considered, gender inequality in the identity and family dimensions are particularly severe for women: these dimensions hence have greater weight in the MGII. However, in OECD countries gender inequality occurs mainly in the political and family dimensions. Nevertheless, the family sphere remains particularly important for gender inequality, whatever the level of development. The MGII is a non-linear weighted composite indicator of gender inequality which yields a country ranking. The South-Asian region is calculated to be the most unequal.     

Beyond the boundaries of the classroom: teaching about gender and sexuality at a drag show

Like much of the general public, the vast majority of my students strongly hold dichotomous, essentialist outlooks about what the categories female and male/gay and straight are supposed to represent and be. One way that I have found to challenge these oppressive worldviews, and also to queer my classes in the process, is to take my course participants to drag shows and/or to use videotapes of drag queens and drag kings in my classes. As part of an ongoing ethnography of drag performers I am undertaking, I have taken over 300 students to drag shows over the past eight years. Female students have often found attending a drag show to be a fun experience free of the sexual harassment found in most bars, while male students often contextually experience being a social minority for the first time in their life. From both attending drag shows and/or watching recordings of them I show in class, students have reported gaining an experiential appreciation of the performed basis of gender, sexuality, and inequality. Or, stated slightly differently, students begin to understand how the stratification system metaphorically makes drag queens of us all. This, in turn, provides the basis of the foremost argument I make in all my classes: equality will not be realized until nondichotomous, truly new ways of relating to others are envisioned and acted upon.     

The gender wealth gap:structural and material constraints and implications for later life

Wealth is an important measure of economic well-being, because while income captures the current state of inequality, wealth has the potential for examining accumulated and historically structured inequality. This presentation documents the extent of gender inequality in wealth for Canadian women and men aged 45 and older. The analysis uses data from the 1999 Canadian Survey of Financial Security, a large nationally representative survey of household wealth in Canada. Wealth is measured by total net worth as measured by total assets minus debt. We test two general hypotheses to account for gender differences in wealth. The differential exposure hypothesis suggests that women report less wealth accumulation because of their reduced access to the material and social conditions of life that foster economic security. The differential vulnerability hypothesis suggests that women report lower levels of wealth because they receive differential returns to material and social conditions of their lives. Support is found for both hypotheses. Much of the gender differences in wealth can be explained by the gendering of work and family roles that restricts women's ability to build up assets over the life course. But beyond this, there are significant gender interaction effects that indicate that women are further penalized by their returns to participation in family life, their health and where they live. When women do work, net of other factors, they are better able to accumulate wealth than their male counterparts.     

Gender Inequality,Maternal Mortality and Inclusive Growth in Nigeria

The relevance of women in contributing to inclusive growth and consequently economic development in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. Women play important social, economic and productive roles in any economy. Maternal mortality rate refers to the annual number of deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births, and Nigeria’s rate is still relatively high at about 630 when compared with the figures of the developed countries. For inclusive growth to be achieved in Nigeria, women should not be neglected and marginalized so they can contribute their quota to the growth of the country, but maternal mortality rate needs to be reduced because it is only the living that can make contributions to growth. Thus, this study examined the long run effect of gender inequality, maternal mortality and inclusive growth in Nigeria using time series data spanning from 1985 to 2017, and employed the ARDL econometric technique. The results showed that gender inequality and maternal mortality have negative impacts on inclusive growth in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommends that women should be properly taken care of during pregnancy so that the maternal mortality rate can be reduced and hence they will be able to make meaningful contributions to the growth of the Nigerian economy.

     

The Regional Concentration of China's Interprovincial Migration Flows, 1982–90

Internal migration has become an increasingly significant element in the redistribution of population and in the planning of socio-economic development in China. Based on the 1987 survey, the 1990 census, and additional data from the 1995 survey, this paper investigates the regional concentration of China's interprovincial migration flows and the gender differential in such concentration. The analysis was undertaken using the coefficient of variation (CV) indices of out- and in-migration flows for each province. The CV indices confirm that each province has its own migration flow field, and the differences lie mainly in the degree of the regional concentration. The asymmetry between out- and in-migration flow fields suggests that China's interprovincial migration has resulted from an interplay of several factors, such as the uneven distribution of the economy, inflow of trans-national capital into pockets of its provinces, and relaxed control over rural-to-urban migration. Findings also illustrate that a select number of provinces play an important role in redistributing migrants in China, specifically, in provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and Hunan. Investigation of the gender differential in the CV indices reveals that female migration flows are more regionally concentrated than male migration flows. This finding is significant in understanding migration constraints for Chinese women.     

家庭中的性别平等问题与社会对策

我国坚持男女平等和计划生育基本国策,促进了家庭领域的性别平等。但是,当今家庭仍然存在一些性别不平等现象．一定程度上制约了女孩的成长和妇女的发展。要实现家庭中的性别平等与两性和谐发展必须发挥政府和社会组织的作用,进一步倡导社会性别平等意识、建设先进性别文化、推进社会政策的性别主流化,关心女孩成长、提高妇女社会经济地位。     

Accounting for Cross-National Differences in Infant Mortality Decline (1965–1991) among less Developed Countries: Effects of Women's Status,Economic Dependency,and State Strength

The present study tests models derived from four theoretical perspectives: Modernization/free trade theory, gender inequality theory, developmental state theory, and dependency theory. It is based on a sample of 82 less developed countries for the period from 1965 to 1991. We find some support for each theoretical perspective. Foreign trade, investment, and debt dependency have adverse effects on infant mortality, mediated by variables linked to modernization/free trade theory and gender inequality theory. State strength has a beneficial direct effect on infant mortality decline. Women's education and reproductive autonomy have significant direct effects, but also play important roles as mediating variables as does rate of economic growth.     

农村出生性别比失衡的社会性别分析

近年来中国人口出生性别比持续攀升。已有的人口学研究,一般从经济发展水平、传统生育观念以及社会保障等方面分析性别比失衡的原因,忽视了男女不平等对性别比失衡的影响。运用社会性别分析方法,分析农村事实上的男女不平等对性别比失衡的重要影响,进而提出要想解决性别比失衡问题,社会必须更加关注女性的发展。     

Economic inequality and child stunting in Bangladesh and Kenya: an investigation of six hypotheses

Consistent with the increasing focus on issues of equity in developing countries, I extend the literature analyzing the relationship between economic inequality and individual health to the developing world. Using survey data from Bangladesh and Kenya with economic status measured by a wealth index and with three different geographic definitions of community, I analyze six competing hypotheses for how economic inequality may be related to stunting among children younger than 5 years old. I find little support for the predominant hypothesis that economic inequality as measured by a Gini index is an important predictor of individual health. Instead, I find that the difference between a household's wealth and the mean household wealth in the community is the measure of economic inequality that is most closely related to stunting in these countries. In particular, a 1 standard deviation increase in household wealth relative to the community mean is associated with a 30–32 percent decrease in the odds of stunting in Bangladesh and a 16–21 percent decrease in the odds of stunting in Kenya.     

A Household-Based Distribution-Sensitive Human Development Index: An Empirical Application to Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru

In measuring human development, one of the main concerns relates to the inclusion of a measure that penalizes inequalities in the distribution of achievements across the population. Using indicators from nationally representative household surveys and census data, this paper proposes a straightforward methodology to estimate a household-based distribution-sensitive human development index aggregated through generalized means. The evidence shows that the losses in human development due to inequality reach up 22, 29 and 57% in Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua, respectively. Among dimensions, the loss in the income index reaches up 61% in Nicaragua, while the education index appears as the most sensitive in the case of Mexico and Peru, with a percentage of loss between 38 and 48%. The importance of household-level calculations is highlighted when we compare the indices computed from the entire distribution with those existing indices computed for quintiles of the distribution, which minimizes the losses due to inequality. Overall, the estimations evidence a higher sensitivity of the index to inequality, and therefore an important space for public action to reduce inequality that could involve positive development returns.     

Gender Equity,Religion, and Fertility in Europe and North America

Religion has historically been a pronatalist force, but because it fosters traditional gender role attitudes, its importance for fertility may wane where gender equity is thought to be emerging as the new natalism. In this study, I used World Values Survey and European Values Survey data from 1989 to 2018 to determine whether more religious Northern countries are slower to develop the widespread egalitarian gender role attitudes associated with fertility recovery. I concluded that the “old natalism” and the “new natalism” do not compete with each other as much as their negative association implies that they might. By tracing the evolution of country‐level gender equity in more‐ and less religious countries of Europe and North America, I showed how country‐level religiosity does not dampen the potential for a gender equity‐stimulated fertility recovery. This paper also contributes by showing that the curvilinear relationship between gender equity and fertility has continued into more recent time periods than covered by previous work.     

Educational assortative mating and economic inequality: A comparative analysis of three Latin American countries

Educational assortative mating and economic inequality are likely to be endogenously determined, but very little research exists on their empirical association. Using census data and log-linear and log-multiplicative methods, I compare the patterns of educational assortative mating in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, and explore the association between marital sorting and earnings inequality across countries. The analysis finds substantial variation in the strength of specific barriers to educational intermarriage between countries, and a close association between these barriers and the earnings gaps across educational categories within countries. This finding suggests an isomorphism between assortative mating and economic inequality. Furthermore, educational marital sorting is remarkably symmetric across gender in spite of the different resources that men and women bring to the union. This study highlights the limitations of using single aggregate measures of spousal educational resemblance (such as the correlation coefficient between spouses’ schooling) to capture variation in assortative mating and its relationship with socioeconomic inequality.     

中国老年人口健康预期寿命差异的分解研究

健康预期寿命是反映人群健康长寿的重要指标,健康预期寿命差异反映了一个国家或地区的健康不平等状况。利用多状态生命表分析了中国老年人口健康预期寿命在过去十余年间的趋势与变动,并通过夏普利值分解法测算了人口社会学等11类因素对老年人口健康预期寿命差异的具体贡献值。得到以下四项重要研究结论:第一,从2005年到2018年,中国老年人口健康预期寿命差异的程度略有增加,女性、农村群体相比对应群体差距始终较高;泰尔指数分解发现,组内不平等(而非组间不平等)是造成上述差异的主要原因;老年人口健康预期寿命的性别差异呈现出高龄老人缩小而低龄老人扩大的趋势。第二,婚姻状况是健康预期寿命变动最重要的影响因素,但影响程度呈现逐年下降趋势,反之,受教育程度的影响在逐年上升;进一步将11类影响因素归类后发现:"个体特征"是最重要的影响因素,"经济因素"和"行为因素"的重要性次之,"环境因素"的影响最小。第三,上述影响因素对中国老年人口健康预期寿命的影响总体呈上升趋势,分城乡、分性别后依然呈现出相同的特征。最后,各因素在不同城乡、性别、婚姻状态的群体中的影响存在异质性。