Gender Empowerment Measurement ( GEM ) is an index designed to measure gender equality. GEM is an effort of the United Nations Development Program to measure the level of gender inequality across the world, based on estimates of women's relative economic revenues, participation in high paying positions with economic power, and access to professional and parliamentary positions. It was introduced in conjunction with the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) but measured topics such as empowerment not covered by the index.
Video Gender Empowerment Measure
Histori
In 1995 in the Human Development Report was commissioned by the United Nations Development Program to create two new measurement indexes to measure development. Their goal is to increase the Human Development Index by incorporating the gender dimension in size. They are created to compete with developmental measures that focus on traditional income such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP). Mahbub ul Haq, the first director of the Human Development Reports Office, sets out several principles for emerging sizes including the provision that it should be simple, should be represented as a number, should be easy to calculate, should produce internationally comparable numbers, should use the numbers available each years and must use easily interpreted numbers. The resulting steps made were the Gender Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measures (GEM). The GEM, more specifically from both, is focused on demonstrating women's empowerment in a country.
Maps Gender Empowerment Measure
Definition and calculation
GEM is designed to measure "whether women and men can actively participate in economic and political life and take part in decision-making" (UNDP, 1995, p.Ã, 73) (Klasen 257). GEM tends to be more focused on agents (what people can actually do) than focus on welfare (how people perceive or pay in large schemes). GEM is determined using three basic indicators: The proportion of seats held by women in the national parliament, the percentage of women in economic decision-making positions (including administrative, managerial, professional and technical work) and the division of women's incomes (male- male). woman). GEM is considered a valuable policy instrument because it allows certain dimensions previously difficult to compare between countries to international comparisons.
Debate
As time passes, and these steps (GDI and GEM) are applied year after year, debates have arisen as to whether they are equally influential in promoting gender-sensitive development as expected when they were first created. Some of the main criticisms of both measures include that they are highly specialized and difficult to interpret, often misinterpreted, suffer from large data gaps, do not provide accurate comparisons between countries, and try to incorporate too many development factors into one measure. Concerns then arise that if these indices are not well informed, then their numbers may hide more than they reveal.
In terms of GEM in particular, it is often said to represent an elite bias. It has been accused of measuring inequality only among the most educated women and economically disadvantaged and to focus primarily on the high echelons of society. Women in grassroots organizations or at the local political level are not reflected, and work in lower-level jobs or in the informal sector, where many women in poor and developing countries are forced to find employment. In addition, statistical information (data) is not available for many indicators in GEM. Not many less developed countries collect credible data about women's involvement in economic participation or labor involvement. As a result, GEMs are only reliable for highly developed countries that collect those statistics. It is also often said that the number of women in parliament is not a sufficient indication of the progress of gender empowerment in certain countries because many times feminists are perceived as political obligations, and thus women politicians do not always promote the interests of women. On the other hand, however, information on the number of parliament seats held by women is very easy to obtain, and very difficult to change, making it one of the more reliable data sources in size. Another criticism of the GEM is its failure to address the issue of women's control over their body and their sexuality, which some say is an important source of women's empowerment and should therefore be included in the measure. In addition, GEM is also criticized for relying too much on the income component of the measure to determine the overall GEM score.
Suggestions for improving
Suggested changes
Many suggestions have been made to change the GEM. It has been suggested that the GEM be changed to include women's representation in local government, not just national governments to make it less elite. Furthermore, it has been recommended that it be revised to reflect women's participation in political activities such as voting. In addition, it has been recommended that components concerning women's control over their body and their own sexuality are added by measuring the availability of birth control and the right to abortion. It has also been argued that GEMs can be changed to include the proportion of women in extreme poverty compared to the proportion of women's parliamentary positions. Finally, it has been suggested that GEMs can be changed to include women's unemployment rates. Other suggestions include coming up with a variety of ways to deal with the revenue share earned so as to make it an easier measurement model.
Recommended alternatives
Suggestions have also been made to replace the GEM as a whole. One such suggestion is the calculation of separate Human Development Indexes for men and women that will give a clearer picture of gender inequality (first suggested by Halis Akder in 1994). Another suggestion is to create Gender-Gap Measure. In 2003 Charmes and Wieringa produced the Women's Empowerment Matrix which considers six spheres (physical, socio-cultural, religious, political, legal and economic) and six levels: individual, household, community, state, regional, and global. GEE is another suggested alternative to GEM, this measure will cover the legal framework and protection of women's rights, as well as other important areas of women's empowerment ignored by GEM such as the women's movement, public attitudes and equality. Finally, in the 2010 Human Development Report, a new measurement mechanism was created entitled Gender Inequality Index. The size of this new experiment considers three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation aimed at correcting some of the problems associated with GEM.
See also
- Gender equality
- Gender inequality
- Gender Parity Index
- Gender-Related Development Index
- Human Development Index
- Global Gender Gap Report
- Social Institutions and Gender Index
- The Human Poverty Index
- National Human Development Report
- UN Women
References
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