This contribution for Political Insight (June 2019, Volume 10, Issue 2) maps gender inequality around the world and argues that the political sphere is often the most resistant to change. Unequal treatment based on gender is deeply embedded in many countries. Gender studies emerged as an important part of academic research in the 1980s. The issue of gender inequality also emerged on the global political agenda, albeit slowly. Gender-related measures became part of the Human Development Index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
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Gender Inequality in the European Union
How are the EU member nations faring in the fight for gender equality? It is a complex task to measure the progress that has been made in achieving equal gender rights. The Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework for the global level that is targeted at the most pressing issues of gender based discrimination. In addition to that, national governments as well as trans-national organisations such as the European Union have started concerted efforts to better understanding progress that is made in the different areas that relate to gender equality. This is often linked to developing new policies that aim to improve the situation in the different areas where gender issues matter.
The European Institute for Gender Equality has developed a Gender Equality Index that provides a measure for comparing member states over time in a range of areas relevant to European policymaking. The advantage of using an index is the possibility to use a single measure to monitor and track overall progress between the different countries. The combination of different indicators therefore does not prioritise a single issue of gender rights, but aims to support overall progress as an integrated challenge for achieving real change in thinking.
Global Gender Gap in Secondary Education
100% Equality was the theme of a session at this year’s Nexus Europe Youth Summit in London last week. As a member of the panel I started off by giving a global overview of the state of gender (in)equality and how this is being measured by different institutions, such as the United Nations Development Programme, the World Economic Forum, or the European Institute for Gender Equality. While they draw very different pictures in their detailed indicators, there are also a lot of similarities, with the European Nordic countries almost always being in the top spots of the overall index, which does not mean that in any of these countries absolute gender equality has been achieved. Globally seen, health equality is furthest progressed, why empowerment and participation remain amongst the most pressing issues.
The following map is from my slides that I have shown and displays the gender gap in secondary education around the world projected on an equal-population projection using a gridded cartogram transformation:
Global Gender Inequality
The unequal treatment of individuals based on their gender is a deeply rooted problem in most societies. It started becoming an important part of academic research in the 1980s. The issue of gender inequality also became in various measures part of the Human Development Index (HDI), the annual report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and was eventually integrated as the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in the 2010 report. It is designed to measure the loss of achievement within a country caused by gender inequality.
Women in Parliament
Make it happen is this year’s theme of International Women’s Day. The day is Internationally the day is celebrated every year on March 8th since 1911 and in 1917 demonstrations in the context of the Women’s Day lead to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. What had started as a socialist event to recognize women’s economic, political, and social struggles and achievements has now lost this ideological connotation. Today it is rather regarded as an opportunity to raise awareness for the inequality women still experience in all societies.
In some countries the day is still an official holiday, such as in Russia and other former socialist republics, but also in Afghanistan, Angola and Eritrea. In China, Madagascar, Macedonia and Nepal it is a holiday solely for women.
Gender inequality remains a pressing challenge globally and is seen as a major barrier to human development which is why the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) has a specific indicator to take these problems into account. The Gender Inequality Index (GII) measures gender (in)equity in health, education, work and politics.
The following map shows one indicator from the current GII that highlights the political representation of women in parliaments worldwide measured by the share of seats in parliament (with data for 2013). The map uses an equal-population projection which gives every person on the planet an equal amount of space:
Violence against Women in the European Union
Everyone has a responsibility to prevent and end violence against women and girls, starting by challenging the culture of discrimination that allows it to continue.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Today’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women raises awareness for an issue which on the campaign’s website is described as a global pandemic because of the discrimination against women and persisting inequalities between men and women: “35% of women and girls globally experience some form of physical and or sexual violence in their lifetime with up to seven in ten women facing this abuse in some countries. It is estimated that up to 30 million girls under the age of 15 remain at risk from FGM/C, and more than 130 million girls and women have undergone the procedure worldwide. Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today were married as children, 250 million of whom were married before the age of 15. Girls who marry before the age of 18 are less likely to complete their education and more likely to experience domestic violence and complications in childbirth.”
These problems are a global phenomenon. In a recent report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights it was concluded that “an estimated 13 million women in the EU were victims of physical violence during the 12 months before the survey” and “an estimated 1.5 million women in the EU were raped in the course of those 12 months.”
The following maps show some of the key data of the study in form of cartograms that use the number of adult women as a basemap, meaning that each country of the European Union is resized according to the total number of woman aged 15 and above to which the overlaid statistics relate in the survey. The maps show the real extent of violence against women in the EU. The first map summarises the data, while the second map series below splits the results from the study into violence within and outside relationships:
