Gender Equality Index launched in Brussels
The Gender Equality Index, launched on 13 June 2013 during a high-level conference in Brussels, will become one of the milestones of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), the knowledge centre on gender issues in the EU.
Three years of hard work, analysing data on the status of equality of women and men in several domains, calculating and recalculating indicators and variables resulted in a robust and solid Gender Equality Index. It is the only gender equality index specifically tailored towards the EU and the Member States aiming at supporting future policy work in this area. The uniqueness of the Index lies in the capacity to precisely pinpoint the equality gaps that exist between the status of women and men in the domains of work, money, knowledge, time, power and health.
Unique features of the Gender Equality Index for Europe:
- is specifically tailored towards the EU gender equality policy framework and objectives;
- adopts a gender approach instead of a women’s empowerment approach;
- relies on a more comprehensive framework of gender equality than those of other women’s or gender indicators;
- measures gender gaps that are adjusted to levels of achievements, ensuring that gender gaps cannot be regarded positively where they point to an adverse situation for both women and men;
- highlights gaps in data availability by identifying potential gender indicators and calls for harmonised, reliable data that are both disaggregated by sex and available for all Member States.