2012 Gender Inequality Index

The U.N. (Development Program) released the 2013 Human Development Report (and the 2012 Human Development Index within it) a few days ago. It incorporates data from 2012 for the latest Gender Inequality Index (on pages 156-159). This index reflects gender inequality along three dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market – as rated by five indicators: maternal mortality and adolescent fertility for reproductive health, parliamentary representation and educational attainment for empowerment, and labor force participation for the labor market.

Of the 186 countries ranked in the 2012 Human Development Index, 148 of those countries are ranked in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index. The U.S. ranks #42, the U.K. ranks #34, Canada ranks #18, Australia ranks #17, New Zealand ranks #31, and South Africa ranks #90.

Also out of those 186 countries (for the 2012 Gender Inequality Index…), Netherlands ranks #1, Sweden ranks #2, Denmark and Switzerland rank #3, Norway ranks #5 (though as you might expect, Norway ranks #1 overall in Human Development), Finland and Germany rank #6, Slovenia ranks #8, France ranks #9, Iceland ranks #10, Italy ranks #11 and Belgium ranks #12.

In addition, out of those 186 countries (for the 2012 Gender Inequality Index…), India ranks #132, Saudi Arabia ranks #145, Afghanistan ranks #147, and Yemen ranks #148.

Click here for a PDF of the full 2013 Human Development Report.

Click here for a webpage with frequently asked questions (and answers) about the Gender Inequality Index.

Click here (and scroll down to “technical note 3”) for a PDF file that provides details on how the 2011 Gender Inequality Index was calculated.

Unfortunately, the link (to a PDF file) for details on how the latest Gender Inequality Index is calculated does not currently work. Click here in case it starts working.

Click here (and then click on “2012” toward the right side of the page) for a webpage that provides a possibly more straightforwardly ordered listing of countries in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index (though some parts of the ordering seem different from the ordering indicated in the 2013 Human Development Report).

What do readers think? All sorts of data here for all sorts of comments…

Also, in case anyone is interested: “The Google Public Data Explorer makes large, public-interest datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand.”

Here is a webpage for this tool.

Readers can find some basic Google Public Data Help for using the tool here.