Signposts & indicators of progress in gender equality

Signposts & indicators of progress in gender equality Workshop 63rd Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference 1 September 2010 Jo Crawford, IWDA

Acknowledgements • Material in this presentation draws on and benefits from work by Dr Scott Wisor and Dr Kieran Donoghue from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University, colleagues on an Australian Research Council-funded three-year international research collaboration, Assessing Development: Designing better indices of poverty and gender equity. • It also draws on and benefits from work by Dr Juliet Willetts and Naomi Carrard (Institute for Sustainable Future, University of Technology Sydney) and Gabrielle Halcrow and Claire Rowland (IWDA), colleagues on an AusAID-funded research project, Documenting successes, enablers and measures of engendering water and sanitation initiatives in the Pacific to inform policy and practice.

Why measurement matters so much • While no number of indicators ‘can capture the rich diversity and complexity of women's lives, they help us to monitor the fulfilment of commitments to women's progress, as well as mobilise support for stronger efforts in this regard.’Noeleen Heyzer, then Executive Director, UNIFEM, Speech ‘Progress for Women Progress for All’, 9 April 2001, Santiago, Chile) • Available statistics have their limitations in terms of data quality & what the data captures. But challenges go well beyond statistical capacity and resourcing. What counts as progress is often a contested field in which there are competing visions of ‘the good society’, and of women’s place within it. (UNRISD (2005), Gender Equality: Striving For Justice In An Unequal World, United Nations Research Institute For Social Development) • So good measurement embodies significant philosophical, political, technical, organisational and practical challenges. • So, what should we measure to know that investments in health, education or economic opportunities are contributing to lasting empowerment of women, and creating space and an enabling environment for advancing gender equality?

Main current gender equality metrics • The Gender Empowerment Measure seeks to measure the extent of gender equality in agency rather than achievements in well-being (as measured by women’s and men’s share of parliamentary seats; legislators, senior officials and managers; professional and technical positions; and estimated earned income); • the Gender-Related Development Index (a penalty on the HDI to take account of gender gaps in standard of living, longevity, and education) • Though some see the GDI not as a measure of gender inequality but ‘a human development measure that takes into account gender gaps in well-being’ (UNRISD (2005), Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World.) • the Global Gender Gap Index (measuring gaps in economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival); • the OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (ranking country’s institutions according to 12 indicators in 5 dimensions).

Critiques / limits of current metrics • Current composite metrics focus on aspects that matter most to the more privileged and fail to take account of inequities among the worst off. So gender equity can be improved even if the poorest women are made worse off • Eg if more privileged women have increased access to high income earning jobs or parliamentary representation, this can count as an overall improvement in gender equality even if the situation for the poorest women & men is unchanged. (See Pogge, Thomas. “Developing Morally Plausible Indices of Poverty and Gender Equity.” Philosophical Topics, 2009.) • This is a particular issue for the GDI, which uses per-capita income, and the GEM, which uses parliamentary representation and representation in senior positions as indicators of empowerment. • Existing metrics also miss key dimensions & indicators of gender inequity • But what are the priority dimensions and indicators of gender inequity that we should focus on? And how important is their overall contribution to gender inequality - ie what should their relative weight be? Making these determinations, and providing clear justifications for how they are made, is a significant challenge.

Critiques / limits of current metrics • Existing indices calculate gender equity across populations and are insensitive to distributions of gender inequality among groups - economic groups such as the poor but also groups characterized by ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion, class, or geographic location. • Existing metrics of gender equity also ignore what is arguably the primary site of gender injustice, the household. • Metrics that rely on household-level data are blind to how food, work, control over decision making and resource use, access to assets such as property, livestock, various financial stocks, education, labour, child care, care for the sick and elderly, leisure time, domestic violence etc etc is distributed within the household – yet we know this is where gender inequality is ubiquitous and pronounced

We can’t measure everything – & measurement won’t tell us everything that matters • Mayoux reminds us that “…any indicators are inevitably partial and selective. This is as true of economic indicators as social indicators, as true of quantitative as qualitative ones. The selection of any particular set of indicators from the total possible range of relevant indicators is inevitably based on an underlying theoretical, and often political, understanding of what types of impacts are important.The key task in selecting indicators is not therefore to attempt to provide a total picture of 'reality ' where all possible impacts are rigorously quantified. This is impossible even in large-scale longitudinal academic research. Nor is it to narrow down the numbers and types of indicators in a preconceived straightjacket. This is unlikely to yield credible or useful information for policy improvement.” Mayoux, L. (n.d). ‘What do we want to know? Selecting indicators’. Unpublished paper: available online at http://gametlibrary.worldbank.org/FILES/141_Guidelines%20for%20selecting%20indicators.pdf

So what are the key tasks? • Following Mayoux, the key tasks are how to make the selection of indicators and their analysis: • more useful • less arbitrary • more accountable. • This must be done in relation to: • a credible model and set of hypotheses about the ways in which particular interventions fit into and contribute to a complex process of change • the aims, needs and aspirations of those which the intervention is intended to benefit” Mayoux, L. (n.d). ‘What do we want to know? Selecting indicators’.

Incorporating complexity, interaction & voice • We need to ground measurement in an understanding of how poor women & men define desirable outcomes & how they assess change, & think holistically about: • What sorts of outcomes poor women (& men) value – personally, in their relationship and at community level • Things that poor women (& men) might be very vulnerable to • The assets & resources that help them thrive & survive • The policies, laws & institutions that impact on women’s and men’s livelihoods & opportunities • How poor women (& men) respond to threats & opportunities • CARE Australia’s efforts to articulate a theory of women’s empowerment across three domains demonstrates ways of working that reflect the complexity of women’s lives and contexts, and the inter-related changes needed to progress empowerment and equality • IWDA is involved in three research activities that seek to ground measurement in the aims, needs and aspirations of poor women (& men) and reflect the relationship between various capabilities and domains of change

What are the priority dimensions to measure? • The UN Millennium Taskforce on Education and Gender Equalityidentified seven interdependent strategic priorities and indicators to monitor these as critical to achieving MDG Goal 3 by 2015. • Strengthen opportunities for post-primary education for girls while simultaneously meeting commitments to universal primary education. • Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights. • Invest in infrastructure to reduce women’s and girls’ time burdens.

UN Millennium Taskforce: focus on seven global gender priorities... • Guarantee women’s and girls’ property and inheritance rights. • Eliminate gender inequality in employment by decreasing women’s reliance on informal employment, closing gender gaps in earnings, and reducing occupational segregation. • Increase women’s share of seats in national parliaments and local governmental bodies. • Combat violence against girls and women.

UN Millennium Taskforce: indicators for tracking progress towards gender equality Education • The ratio of female to male gross enrolment rates in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. • The ratio of female to male completion rates in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Sexual and reproductive health and rights • Proportion of contraceptive demand satisfied. • Adolescent fertility rate. Infrastructure • Hours per day (or year) women and men spend fetching water and collecting fuel.

UN Millennium Taskforce: indicators for tracking progress towards gender equality Property rights • Land ownership by male, female, or jointly held. • Housing title, disaggregated by male, female, or jointly held. Employment • Share of women in employment, both wage and self-employment, by type. • Gender gaps in earnings in wage and self-employment. Participation in national parliaments & local government bodies • Percentage of seats held by women in national parliament. • Percentage of seats held by women in local government bodies. Violence against women • Prevalence of domestic violence.

Focus on metrics relevant to the poor • UN Millennium Taskforce highlights global-level strategic priorities. • But within these priorities, and especially for NGOs, there are ethical & efficiency reasons to focus on metrics that are relevant at community-level and particularly to the lives of poor women. • ‘Not only does gender inequality exacerbate poverty; poverty also exacerbates inequality between males and females… Whether measured in terms of command over productive resources, or in terms of power to influence the political process, poor men tend to have less influence in the community than non-poor men, and poor women generally have the least influence. These disparities disadvantage women and girls and limit their capacity to participate in and benefit from development.’World Bank Gender and Development Group (2003), Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals, p.7

And on making women’s interests, needs & contributions visible • This is a key priority – for analytical, policy & political reasons. • As currently constructed, mainstream economic indicators such as Gross National Product (GNP), obscure or under-value women's contribution by defining out areas of unpaid work where women dominate, such as child-rearing and other care work, household work, and informal or non-market work . • Gender-sensitive indicators that capture contributions in these areas, and how investments in health, education and economic opportunities affect gender equality in these areas have important political & practical functions, drawing attention to the differential power, workloads and access to resources and opportunities currently enjoyed by men and women. • Also critical are indicators that capture outcomes in relation to key dimensions missing from current composite gender equality measures: Decision-making at the local-level Care work Time use Empowerment (in ways that matter to poor women) Physical security Quality of work Rights

And on measuring progress in relation to things that make a difference to poor women • For feminists, gender equality is less about distribution of goods and resources than about access and control, and about redefining the sites of inequality and injustice • Including by recognising women’s concerns, interests, needs, priorities & contributions as valid & legitimate in their own right, not just in relation to dominant masculine rules, norms & standards. • This underlines the importance of a focus on measuring empowerment, participation and agency (Measuring Empowerment: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives. Ed. Deepa Narayan. World Bank: OUP, 2005.) • And of advocating to governments to prioritise collecting data specific to or of particular concern to women • Lack of data remains a key and crippling limitation

For example, gender equality changes at the local level in relation to ‘traditional’ gender roles & responsibilities • Recent research in Vanuatu and Fiji highlights the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene as a site for promoting and assessing gender equality • Women reported that inclusive activities to improve WASH had seen them take on leadership roles for the first time within their community, noting that this was positive in terms of their self-confidence and sense of growing empowerment at the personal level, and further led to increased respect for women within the broader community. • Men said they had become more supportive of making space for women’s voices in community decision-making & recognised that lack of self-confidence at times prevented women from sharing their perspectives and views. • Men’s support for including women was considered to have stemmed from another positive gender outcome (increased recognition by men of women’s contribution to the community and increased trust in women). • These point to the kinds of indicators of political participation and leadership that can be appropriate at the community level

Missing dimensions: physical security • In most contexts women are disproportionately exposed to violence and in particular specific forms of gender-based violence. This includes much higher incidence and prevalence of sexual violence and domestic abuse. • There are currently no global databases on gender-based violence, although there are efforts to more systematically and comprehensively study the phenomenon (see Diprose, Rachel. “A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators of Violence.”OPHI Working Paper No. 1, 2007; http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/vaw-stat-2005/docs/final-report-vaw-stats.pdf) • The lack of physical security for women (and some men) contributes to other inequalities such as livelihood options, mobility, or access to water and sanitation.

Missing dimensions: time use • Even if consumption levels are broadly equal between men and women, men and boys tend to have more leisure time than women and girls because of the additional time burdens women face, including most of the work within the ‘household economy’. Developing reliable indicators of time-use could be very important in highlighting gender inequities. (See Gender, Time-Use, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Eds. Mark Blackden and Quentin Wodon. World Bank Working Paper No. 73, 2006.) • The extent of time inequality can very significant at some points in the life cycle. For example, in rural Ghana, the high intensity of domestic unpaid work restricts the time women have available for remunerated and other activities. ‘Their peak workload reaches 80 hours a week during their most productive age (around 30), while men, peaking around the same age, work about 50 hours a week.’ (see International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, ‘Age and Gender Bias in Workloads during the Lifecycle: Evidence from Rural Ghana’, One Pager No. 88, July 2009) • Gendered information about how men and women use time is critical to understanding opportunities to engage in ‘productive’ activity, self-development and decision making, and may also tell you something about decision making rights, economic resources, skills, opportunities & health

Missing dimensions: Care work, quality of work • A related concern is the gendered nature of care work. This is not just about the impact of caring on the overall amount of work women do relative to men. For example, when a family member falls ill and the woman is responsible for the caring, she may lose not just time but also employment or educational opportunities.(See Folbre, Nancy. “Gender, Empowerment, and the Care Economy.” Journal of Human Development: 7.2 (2007)) • Quality of work may be a particularly important indicator of gender inequity for poor people. Both men and women may engage in dangerous or degrading work. But gender shapes the degree to which people are able to be employed in safe, reliable, secure, and dignified employment.(Lugo, Maria Ana, “Employment: A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators,” OPHI Working Paper No. 2, 2007)

Missing dimensions: empowerment • The ability to be empowered, to be able to influence the choices and decisions one faces, and act according to one’s preferences, and to be able to influence decision making in the household and community are deeply shaped by gender. Reliable indicators of empowerment could play a role in assessing gender equity. (See Alkire, Sabina and Ibrahim, Solava. “Agency and Empowerment: A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators.”) • ‘We used to be scattered and not working together (between the women), now we have representation in the committee. Now women start to talk in meetings, now there are women who help take decisions. Before women didn’t talk in community meetings, now they participate and also take decisions. It makes me so proud that we have a voice in development compared to previous years where only men talk. This is through the encouragement from World Vision’ (Puluan woman).

Missing dimensions: power & control of assets & resources • Research by Professor Sylvia Chant of the London School of Economics over 25+ years highlights the importance of focusing not just on household income or consumption but on the ability to havepower and control over the use and distribution of resources. Some ‘income-poor’ female-headed households may be better off, and their children may be better off, than non-income poor women in households where they do not have control over and access to various assets and resources – financially and in terms of improved physical security. (See Chant, Sylvia. Gender, Generation, and Poverty: Exploring the ‘Feminisation of Poverty’ in Aficia, Asia, and Latin America. Edward Elgar, 2007.) • Expanded economic opportunities and greater involvement in the formal economy has, for many women, not been a liberating experience but rather, associated with a growing feminisation of responsibility for both productive and reproductive roles. • Indeed women's growing inputs to household livelihoods have in some cases enabled men to utilise traditional gender privileges even more actively.

Missing dimensions: power & control of assets & resources • The result is 'persistent and/or growing disparities in women's and men's capacities to negotiate gendered obligations and entitlements in households. Despite women's progressive advance to the frontline of coping with poverty, they do not seem to have gained any ground for negotiating greater inputs to household incomes or labour on the part of men, let alone reductions in resource-depleting activities [such as gambling and drinking] which are in part driven by normative ideals of masculinity.‘(Sylvia Chant, “The ‘feminisation of poverty’ -- a contested concept in need of better gender and poverty indices: reflections from comparative research in the Gambia, Philippines And Costa Rica”, Paper for a workshop on ‘Needs, Development and Gender Equity’, University of Oslo, 12-15 March 2009) • Chant’s research highlights the need to go beyond income, economic opportunities, education, participation in community life or formal rights in order to measure gender equality effectively.

Missing dimensions: rights, mobility • There are a variety of rights that are central to gender equality. Measurement of both existence and substantive enjoyment could contribute to the measurement of gender inequality. • A specific set of rights clearly related to gender equity is the ability to have access to contraception and abortion, both the formal right and the substantive freedom to exercise that right. Measuring this could also contribute to assessing gender equality.(Jaggar, Alison. “Abortion Rights and Gender Justice Worldwide: An Essay in Political Philosophy.” In Abortion: Three Perspctives. Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2009.) • The ability to move freely can be a significant contributor to & consequence of gender inequity. Risks of violence, social norms and sometimes legal constraints can govern the ability of women to be mobile, in addition to resource constraints & care obligations which may limit choices available to women.

Gender equality changes that matter to poor women & men in the Pacific • Recent research on gender outcomes from WASH activities in Vanuatu (& Fiji) underlined the importance of measuring outcomes at individual, relational and community levels • Positive changes in gender relations at family and/or household level • Increased respect given to women by husbands and other men in the household • Changes in gender division of labour with men taking on an increasing role in hygiene at home to support their wives • Reduction in violence at the household level • Positive changes in gender relations at the community level • Recognition of women’s hard work in the community • Increased trust in women

Gender equality changes that matter to poor women & men in the Pacific • Women’s inclusion in decision making processes in their community • Women taking on leadership roles for the first time in their community • Women’s inclusion in committees and decision making processes • Increased space and support for women’s voice to be heard at community level • Women’s labour in collecting water reduced and their practical need for water, hygiene and sanitation facilities satisfied See http://www.iwda.org.au/au/programs/research/gendering-sanitation/

Gender equality changes that matter to poor women & men in the Pacific • Initial results from research involving University of Western Sydney, Macquarie University, Fiji National University & IWDA to develop a suite of community-based indicators of gender equality to monitor the gender outcomes of economic programs at the community levelin the Pacific point to similar priorities: • Gain control over resources (self sufficiency/ self reliance/ independence/ decision making/ income/ time/ business resources) • To be respected and listened to, valued and support each other in the household (men & women, parents & children) • Access to new knowledge & training • Access to formal education • Opportunities to contribute to the community • Community recognition of work, skills and voice • Opportunity to influence and take on leadership roles to create change • Fair sharing of responsibility of work, and benefits in the household • Shared decision making about resources and savings in the household • Ability to make financial contribution to the family and extended family • Opportunities to experience self respect, increased confidence • Safety in the community and safety in the family

Signposts & indicators of progress in gender equality