On the Measurement of Gender Equality and Gender-related Development Levels

The aim of this paper is, first, to present an overall development index corrected for gender differences — the 'Multidimensional Gender-related Development Index' (MGDI) — which can be viewed as an alternative to the Gender-related Development Index. Secondly, to present a 'Multidimensional Gender Equality Index' (MGEI) that is not influenced by overall development levels. The new MGDI and MGEI are intended to overcome some of the shortcomings that characterize both the United Nations Development Programme's gender-related indices — the Gender-related Development and the Gender Empowerment Measure — and other indices that try to measure gender inequality by itself. This is accomplished through an innovative approach in which we first outline the theoretical properties of a reasonable gender equality measure and an overall development index corrected for gender differences, and then present an appropriate measure that contains all those properties at the same time.