Maria Caprile CIREM Brussels, 23 rd September 2005

1. Measuring progress towards the knowledge-based society,quality of working life and gender equality Maria Caprile CIREM Brussels, 23rd September 2005

2. Contents • To develop a system for measuring, ranking and benchmarking the progress towards the knowledge-based society from the perspective of gender mainstreaming and focusing on the main employment and gender challenges: • overview of current debate on synthetic indices in the field of KBS and gender equality • conceptual framework on employment and gender challenges in the transition towards the KBS • main empirical results for EU15 plus Hungary and Iceland

3. Synthetic indices • Synthetic indices, or composite indicators, are a mathematical aggregation of a set of indicators that have no common meaningful unit of measurement and no obvious way of being weighted • Indices summarise a set of indicators and are considered useful for both monitoring complex processes and policies and facilitating communication to a wide audience • However, the value of producing such summary measures has been hotly debated in both political and academic terms. The simple “big picture” results may send misleading policy messages even when indices are conceptually well constructed

4. Points of departure • Developing a set of synthetic indices for monitoring progress towards the KBS, from the perspective of gender mainstreaming, and focusing on employment and gender challenges, is by no means an easy task • It remains at least questionable to what extent a quantitative approach can even grasp some of the more salient trends of the KBS, as most of them can hardly be translated into quantitative data, and not only because of the current deficits in the available statistical sources • For the purposes of this study: an index is not a goal in itself but a method for understanding the complex reality. This implies that index scores and rankings always need to be contextualised  

5. Defining concepts and dimensions • Conceptual framework with clear criteria concerning what is to be monitored, a clearly defined set of distinct dimensions and a consistent approach across these dimensions, which serves to guide the selection of indicators  • Based on previous Wellknow reports, a conceptual framework has been developed for the three core concepts of: • Knowledge-based society • Employment challenges • Gender challenges • As the aim is to measure and compare facts, not political measures, the focus is on dependent/outcome dimensions and indicators

6. Knowledge-based society • No generally accepted definition, but broad consensus regarding some of its trends: • the large-scale diffusion and use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) • the intensification of innovation (organisational as well as technological) within all kinds of organisation • the development of service economies, where service sectors not only dominate economic activity and employment but knowledge-intensive services also play a major role • the trend towards higher educational attainments and more intense life-long learning • However it is contested: • the extent to which these changes are taking place • their implications in terms of economic growth and competitiveness • and, especially, their social impacts

7. KBS index • Objective: benchmarking economic, technical and social performance in the transition towards the KBS • Four key dimensions • ICT • Competitiveness • Knowledge • Social inclusion

8. Employment challenges • The main employment changes claimed to be a part of the transition to the KBS are: • a shift in employment from goods production to service delivery • an expansion of work organisations which are less hierarchical, more skill-intensive and more flexible • a growth of occupations with a high information and knowledge content in their activity • However, it is contested the extent to which these changes • have taken place • are associated with greater or less skills, inequalities and risks • are leading to more balanced ways of combining working and non-working life • Discussion not only focuses on the more objective changes that are in place at work, but also on the overall impact on workers attitudes, well-being and quality of life

9. QWL index • Objective: benchmarking the quality of working life in the transition towards the KBS • Seven key dimensions • Relevant dimensions for any approach to this issue: decent pay, healthy work, no unemployment and decent work-life balance • Relevant dimensions for a KBS specific approach: autonomous and complex work, skilled work, no entrapment

10. Gender challenges • Discussion on the gendered opportunities and imbalances in the transition towards the KBS show wide divergences • The most optimistic approaches state that changes in place have the potential of leading to more equitable patterns and practices as concerns working conditions and division of paid and unpaid work • Alternative approaches show empirical evidence of a more complex frame of social and gender inequalities, where women can be both winners and losers in the transition towards the KBS

11. Gender equality • Gender equality may refer to equal opportunities (formal equality concept centring on equal starting points) or it may indicate the achievement of equal results, which seems far more ambitious. • From this point of view, gender equality in the transition towards the KBS, as well as in the quality of working life, could be approached as the extent of equal results in the different dimensions already identified • However, there are three gender-sensitive dimensions that should be additionally taken into account: • the extent of equal pay and equal sharing of paid and unpaid work between women and men, which are core issues for any approach to gender equality • the extent of gender segregation as most studies show that traditional patterns of gender segregation acquire great relevance in the transition towards the KBS

12. GE-KBS index and GE-QWL index • GE-KBS objective: measuring the extent of gender (in)equality in the transition towards the KBS • Seven dimensions: • Equal results in the four dimensions of the KBS index • Three additional dimensions: equal pay, equal sharing of caring work and desegregation • GE-QWL objective: measuring the extent of gender (in)equality in the quality of working life in the transition towards the KBS • Seven dimensions: • Equal results in the seven dimensions of the QWL index

13. Indicators • Conceptual and technical constraints related to the availability of harmonised data: • Survey sources: Labour force survey (LFS), European Community Household Panel (ECHP) and III Working Conditions Survey • Institutional sources: OECD and Eurostat • Tentative approaches in some dimensions • ICT and competitiveness, where more sophisticated indicators seem to be needed • Gender-sensitive issues as equal pay, poverty and deprivation, work-life balance or equal sharing of caring work, where data are scarce and poor

14. Gender gaps • Generally agreed way for comparing men’s and women’s average scores (i.e equal pay) • difference between men’s and women's average scores as a percentage of the men’s average score • Divergences for comparing men’s and women’s rates (i.e employment gender gap): absolute gaps, standardised gaps…. • In this study, taking into account that any rate is, by definition, the ratio between two populations (denominator: the reference population; numerator: the subpopulation that shares a specific trend) the gender gap is measured as: • difference, in percentage points, between the percentage of women in the reference population and the percentage of women in the subpopulation analysed

15. Standardisation and aggregation procedures • KBS and QWL indices are meant to compare the countries’ performance on a variety of issues, without establishing any “absolute” goal. For this purpose, the best option of standardisation is using z-scores: • z-scores transform data to a new set with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. A z-score indicates how far and in what direction a case deviates from the sample mean • GE-KBS and GE-QWL indices are meant to measure the extent of gender (in)equality. In this case, full equality can be established as the “absolute” goal and the best option of standardisation is using min-max procedures • min-max scores transform data to a new set with a maximum of 1 (full equality), whilst scores below 1 indicate the actual distance from full equality • A common aggregation procedure for the four indices: all indicators weight equally

16. KBS scores

17. KBS evolution

18. QWL scores

19. QWL evolution

20. GE-KBS scores

21. GE-KBS evolution

22. GE-QWL scores

23. GE-QWL evolution

24. KBS, social inclusion and quality of working life (I) Relationship between scores on ICT, competitiveness and knowledge and scores on social inclusion

25. KBS, social inclusion and quality of working life (II) Relationship between welfare state models and KBS scores

26. KBS, social inclusion and quality of working life (III) Relationship between KBS scores and QWL scores

27. KBS and gender equality (I) Relationship between KBS scores and GE-KBS scores

28. KBS and gender equality (II) Relationship between overall scores on gender equality in ICT, competitiveness, knowledge and social inclusion and overall scores on gender equality in pay and caring work