Gender Development Index

Gender Development Index (GDI)

The Gender Development Index (GDI) is a method for examining gender equality. The Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were first introduced in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report in 1995. The goal of these assessments was to give the Human Development Index a gender-sensitive dimension (HDI). The GDI was the first measurement they devised as a result.

Gender Development Index: Definition

The GDI is a “distribution-sensitive metric that takes into account the impact of existing gender gaps on human development in the three components of the HDI.” The GDI is distribution sensitive, which means it considers not just the averaged or overall level of well-being and prosperity in a given country, but also how this wealth and well-being is distributed among different social groups. The HDI and GDI (together with the GEM) were established to compete with the more traditional general income-based metrics of development, such as GDP and GDP per capita (GNP)

The Gender-Related Development Index

The Gender-Related Development Index is commonly referred to as a “gender-sensitive HDI extension.” It addresses disparities in life expectancy, education, and wealth between men and women. It employs an “inequality aversion” penalty, which penalises gender inequalities in any of the Human Development Index (HDI) categories, such as life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, and logarithmic transformations of per-capita GDP. 

The GDI predicts that women will live five years longer than males in terms of life expectancy. In addition, the GDI takes into account income inequalities in terms of actual earned income. The GDI can’t be utilised without the HDI score, hence it can’t be used as a standalone indication of gender disparities. Only the difference between the HDI and the GDI can be examined appropriately; the GDI is not an independent measure of gender gaps on its own.

The GDI accounts for differences between men and women in three basic dimensions of human development—health, knowledge, and living standards—using the same component indicators as the HDI to quantify gender gaps in human development achievements. The GDI is the ratio of female and male HDIs calculated independently using the same methods as the HDI. 

It’s a direct measure of the gender divide, with the female HDI expressed as a percentage of the male HDI. Women Development Index is also the inaugural measure of women’s development and empowerment in terms of education, health and living standards. Major concerns have arisen which give rise to the introduction of the Women Development Index.

For 167 nations, the GDI is calculated. Based on the absolute divergence from gender parity in HDI values, countries are divided into five groups. This means that both gender disparities favouring males and those favouring females are taken into account when categorising.

The GDI indicates how much women lag behind their male counterparts in each dimension of human development and how far they need to catch up. It is helpful in determining the true gender gap in human development accomplishments and in developing policy measures to close the gap.

Conclusion 

The Gender Development Index (GDI) is a tool that measures the level of gender development in a country. It looks at factors such as health, education, and economic status to determine how well women are doing compared to men. This index is important because it can help policymakers identify areas where more work needs to be done in order to improve the lives of women and girls. Countries that rank high on the GDI tend to have less gender inequality, while countries that rank low often have high levels of gender inequality. The United States ranks 24th out of 189 countries on the 2017 GDI. While this ranking is not perfect, it shows that there is still room for improvement when it comes to gender equality in our country.