Gender inequality is becoming a more important issue as both organizations and society appreciate the importance of a culture that allows for talents of all kinds to flourish.  Measuring gender inequality is notoriously difficult however, but researchers from the University of Missouri believe they’ve come up with a robust approach.

Their new system, which is called the Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI), is documented in a recently published paper.  The new model aims to provide a simpler, yet more complete, measure of our wellbeing, and focuses on our educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and overall life satisfaction.

“We calculated BIGI scores for 134 nations, representing 6.8 billion people,” the researchers explain. “Surprisingly, our new measure indicated that men are, on average, more disadvantaged than women in 91 countries compared with a relative disadvantage for women in 43 countries. We sought to correct the bias toward women’s issues in existing measures and at the same time develop a simple measure that is useful in any country in the world, regardless of their level of economic development.”

Measuring inequality

The new BIGI measure allowed the researchers to discover the most developed countries in terms of achieving gender equality.  In the worst performing countries, education was the key weakness, with women often denied the same opportunities to advance their skills as men.

The most common metric used to measure the equality of a nation has been the Global Gender Gap Index, which was created in 2006.  The researchers behind BIGI believe the index fails to take account of areas where men are often at a disadvantage however.  For instance, criminal punishments are often harsher, military service is compulsory and there are higher levels of death in the workplace.

“No existing measure of gender inequality fully captures the hardships that are disproportionately experienced by men and so they do not fully capture the extent to which any nation is promoting the well-being of all its citizens,” they explain. “The BIGI provides a much simpler way of tackling gender inequality and it focuses on aspects of life that are directly relevant to all people.”

The team don’t advocate not using other metrics at all, but rather that using BIGI alongside them is likely to provide a rounder picture of the true state of affairs than existing models on their own.  This more accurate picture would allow policy makers to make more effective interventions to improve the quality of life of both genders.

“With the BIGI, we are focusing on issues that are important to all women and men in any nation, regardless of level of economic and political development, and by including factors that can disadvantage men as well as women,” the researchers conclude. “Current equality measures are generally biased to highlight women’s issues and thus are not really measures of gender equality.”