Measuring Gender Equality and Institutions

1
Measuring Gender Equality and Institutions

• Improving Data Collection and Data Quality
• Nistha Sinha
• Economist, Gender and Development Unit
• The World Bank
• OECD Workshop
• May 25th, 2007

2
Improving measurement of gender equality
lessons from Global Monitoring Report 2007

• Applied a framework and 3 lenses to identify
  additional indicators
• Three domains household, economy and the
  markets, and society
• Three lenses indicators that are measurable,
  amenable to policy, and are strongly linked to
  poverty reduction and growth
• Reviewed nearly a 100 indicators of gender
  equality in use, recommended 5 to supplement MDG3
• Additional indicators needed in domains of
  economy and markets and society
• Gender gap in wages, women with access to child
  care, businesses owned by men and women, mens
  and womens access to credit, land ownership
• Percentage voting, proportion women in executive
  branch, percentage women owning citizenship
  documents

3
Gender equality, domains of choice, and economic
performance A framework
Gender equality in rights, resources and voice
Household Household resource and task
allocations Fertility decisions
Economy markets Access to land Financial
services Labor markets Technology
Society Civic and political participation
Aggregate economic performance (poverty
reduction, growth)
Source Global Monitoring Report 2007 (World Bank)
4
Why measure institutions?

• Institutions shape the rules of the game
• For example, as in the Gender Action Plan,
  institutions affect womens economic empowerment
  by
• Making markets work for women e.g. legislation
  promoting womens employment laws forbidding
  discrimination in obtaining loans
• Empowering women to compete in markets e.g.
  social/cultural practices affecting womens
  mobility and hence their access to markets
• Interventions and policies can alter institutions
  and make them more gender equal

5
Measuring institutions at which level?

• Measure institutions in 3 domains (household,
  economy, society)
• Formal institutions - more likely to be uniform
  at national level
• Informal institutions - more likely to vary
  across regions within a country
• Sometimes informal institutions might dominate
  formal institutions
• Measure through focus groups, key informants
• Variable measures how discriminatory the
  institution is
• Measure outcomes that reflect institutions in the
  3 domains
• e.g. girls married early, experiencing
  gender-based violence, girls with FGM,
  accessing credit, women owning land
• Advisable not to mix measures of institutions
  with outcome measures
• Institutions are only one of the factors
  influencing outcomes
• For example girls married at young age could be
  affected by marriage institutions (practice of
  dowry, legal age at marriage), demographic
  composition of population, schooling and labor
  market opportunities for women

6
Measuring institutions- additional indicators?

• Applying the Global Monitoring Report 2007
  framework to identify indicators
• Household domain marriage, divorce,
  inheritance, responding to risks, mobility
• Economy and markets owning land, assets,
  financial services, dispute resolution, setting
  up business, perceptions of credit worthiness
• Society domain civil liberties, citizenship,
  political activities (local, national levels),
  rule of law

Included in GID database
7
World Banks role

• WB utilizes measures of institutions
• CPIA
• Doing Business Surveys
• WB collects data at household and enterprise
  level
• Living Standards Measurement Surveys
• Enterprise Surveys

8
World Banks role - continued

• Comparative advantage in collecting data in the
  domain of economy and markets
• LSMS, like other household surveys, can be used
  to gather data on institutions
• e.g. Community modules can collect information
  from key informants or focus groups
• Efforts underway to gather such data through the
  LSMS (e.g. assets work)
• Enterprise surveys
• Ask firms about institutions and whether they
  pose constraints
• Doing Business Survey
• Next Doing Business Survey will have a gender
  focus

9
World Banks role - coordinating with other
stakeholders

• Gender Action Plan aims to support such
  coordination to improve gender statistics
• Interagency and Expert Group for Gender
  Statistics
• Collaboration between WB, UNFPA and UN Statistics
  Division
• Global gender statistics program to be launched
  in Fall 2007
• Share knowledge, tools
• Areas of work include engendering of population
  and housing censuses and household surveys