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.

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。     

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.     

Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being: Comparing Societies with Respect to Gender Equality

These analyses explore the relationship between gender inequality and subjective well-being. The hypothesis was tested as to whether societal gender inequality is related to the size of gender differences in subjective well-being in various societies. Results come from comparative data sets (World Values Survey, involving 57 countries; OASIS project, involving Norway, England, Germany, Spain and Israel). The size of gender differences varied with the extent of societal gender inequality and the cultural attitudes regarding gender equality in different countries. Including individual resources like education and income in the analyses reduced the size of gender and country differences. Gender differences in subjective well-being could therefore be related to gender specific access to goal relevant resources.     

On the Compatibility of Islam and Gender Equality

Although the Muslim world is sometimes depicted as a homogeneous civilization lacking democracy and gender equality, Muslim countries show tremendous economic, political and cultural variation. In this paper, this variation is used to gain insight into the determinants of women’s labor market participation (LMP) in the Muslim world. We use data on 45 Muslim countries and apply SEM models to determine effects of modernization, democracy, cultural background, and state Islamization on women’s participation in the formal economy (absolute LMP) and on the share of women in the labor force (relative LMP). Women’s absolute LMP is higher in Muslim countries with higher levels of economic development and in the oil-exporting countries. For women’s relative LMP, practical democracy (the degree to which people actively participate in the system) takes in a key position. It has a strong positive effect on women’s relative LMP and mediates the effects of economic development (positive), formal democratic structures (positive) and state Islamization (negative) on women’s relative LMP. Results indicate that in these countries modernization may lead to empowerment of women by increasing their absolute LMP, but that for attaining gender equality the political opportunity structures is most important.     

Indicators of Gender Equality for American States and Regions: An Update

This paper describes the methods and datasources used to update state-level indicatorsof economic, political, and legal genderequality originally developed by Sugarman andStraus (1987). Indicators were combined tocreate an updated version of the GenderEquality Index and relevant subscales. Preliminary evidence of the internalconsistency reliability and construct validityof the updated measure is presented. Acomparison of state rankings for the originaland updated versions of the Gender EqualityIndex reveal that there continue to bestatistically significant differences betweenU.S. states and regions in the degree of genderequality observed but there is evidence of atrend toward greater homogeneity among states. Scores on the overall index have not increasedsubstantially in states identified as having ahigh degree of gender equality previously. Instead, the most dramatic increases areoccurring in states characterized by lowerlevels of gender equality previously. Despiteincreases observed among states, the medianscore of 62 on the Updated Gender EqualityIndex reveals that in the typical Americanstate, women have achieved less than two-thirdsof what is needed to have equality with men.     

生育转型、性别平等与香港生育政策选择

香港是世界上生育率水平最低的超低生育率地区之一。低生育率现象是个体导向的社会机制所倡导的两性平等与家庭导向的社会机制在事实上的性别不平等之间强烈冲突的结果。“有偿养育计划”也许是刺激那些有多生倾向的家庭把生育意愿转变为实际生育行为的有效途径。     

Anti-Gay Sentiment Among Adolescents in Belgium and Canada: A Comparative Investigation into the Role of Gender and Religion

Previous research has indicated that opposition toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trangender (LGBT) rights remains prevalent among Western populations. In this article, we investigate the determinants of anti-gay attitudes among adolescents in two liberal democracies, Belgium (n = 6,330) and Canada (n = 3,334). The analysis indicates that hostile feelings toward LGBT rights are particularly widespread among boys, while the effects of socioeconomic status and parental education remain limited. Various religious denominations proved to have a strong and significant negative impact on tolerance, with especially high scores for Islam. Religious practice, too, contributes to a negative attitude toward LGBT rights. The consequences of these findings with regard to tolerance for gay rights among Islamic youth in Western democracies are discussed.     

Religion and fertility: A replication

Jones and Westoff (1979) reported a study offertility trends among white women in intact first marriages. They found that the fertility of white Catholic and non-Catholic wives was converging. The differential had all but disappeared, as had the differential by frequency of communion among Catholic wives. We replicated their study using data from the 1976 National Survey of Family Growth. We found that the fertility of the two religious groups was indeed converging, but the Catholic-non-Catholic differential was larger than that found by Jones and Westoff—how much larger depends on what measure is used. Moreover, we found that the differential by frequency of communion among Catholic wives was not converging. Possible explanations of the apparent differences in the findings are discussed.     

对流动人口就业中男女平等的思考

本文就流动人口就业中的男女平等问题,通过对669名居住上海四区流动人口的问卷调查和45名在上海三家医院妇产科生产和看病流动妇女的访谈,以及企业和各层次外来劳力管理人员的访谈和调查资料的分析,从促进流动人口就业中男女平等出发,探寻有益于流动妇女发展和流入城市发展双赢的途径。     

Ensuring Parliamentary Gender Equality Through a New Zipper Method: An Application to Finland

Gender equality constitutes a crucial objective for a successful societal development. Although research has found that the differences are shrinking, parliamentary composition is not gender balanced in most areas of the world. Henceforth, recent literature has undertaken important efforts aimed at developing different initiatives to promote parity in democratic parliaments, especially through the use of quota systems. Prior initiatives, although leading to an improvement of gender parity, do not manage to ensure an optimal gender-egalitarian parliamentary composition. Thus, this paper presents a method to organize closed and blocked lists of candidates that guarantees the achievement of gender-balanced representation in parliamentary elections. Specifically, parity is sought globally, in each party and also in each electoral constituency. Furthermore, the method is applied to the elections held over the last two decades in Finland. Results reveal that parity in gender representation increases at global, party, and constituency levels throughout all the parliamentary elections in Finland, even approaching optimal numerical parity (i.e. 50 % for each gender) in most of the cases.     

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.     

从性别平等的视角看出生婴儿性别比

我国出生婴儿性别比持续增高的反常现象 ,已引起政府、学术界和国际社会的广泛关注 ,由此对出生婴儿性别比偏高的研究也与日俱增 ,但遗憾的是 ,许多对出生婴儿性别比的研究恰恰忽视了性别平等的视角。本文即从性别平等的视角出发 ,对出生婴儿性别比偏高的实质、危害进行分析 ,并试图找出相应对策     

The Benefits from Marriage and Religion in the United States: A Comparative Analysis

In the United States, married people have better outcomes on a variety of measures of wellbeing than do single persons. People who participate in religious activities show similar advantages relative to those who have no religious involvement. This article présents a comparative analysis of these two social institutions: marriage and religion. A critical review of the literature on how religious involvement and being married affect a range of child and adult outcomes provides evidence of generally positive effects. Religion and marriage have an impact on many of the same domains of life, and there are remarkable similarities in the mechanisms through which they exert an influence.     

Care for Sick Children as a Proxy for Gender Equality in the Family

Swedish parents are entitled to government paid benefits to take care of sick children. In this paper we show that the gender distribution of paid care for sick children is a good proxy for the gender division of household work. Using two examples we show that registry data on care for sick children is a useful data source for studies on gender equality in the family. Our first example shows that increased effort at work leads to a lower effort in household work, and a higher effort at home for the other spouse. Our second example provides some evidence for a pro-cyclical pattern in gender equality.     

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.     

Aging and Gender Health Gap: A Multilevel Analysis for 17 European Countries

Social Indicators Research - The European population is aging and their declining capacity makes older Europeans more dependent on the availability of care. Male and female health needs at older...     

Defying Gender Norms in Rural Bangladesh: A Social Demographic Analysis

This paper proposes core innovations in the strategy of research on demographic behaviour. One aim is a shift of attention away from events and towards a focus on dynamic processes and their interplay: away from a preoccupation with marriage and divorce, births, deaths, migrations, and household structure towards a broader perspective that takes account of partnership and intimacy, parenthood, potential and well-being, position in society and space, and personal ties. Another aim is a much closer engagement with genetics, neuroscience, psychology, and behavioural economics. A third aim is a strategy that pays more attention to pathways within the individual, to the processes entailed when the individual interacts with various contexts, and to progressions that involve the interplay of the pathways and processes through the life course. These shifts of emphasis, which have already begun to occur, require a systematic reassessment of priorities for research on demographic behaviour.