Gender Sensitivity of Well-Being Indicators

In this paper, we assess the gender sensitivity of some conventional indicators of wellbeing in developing countries as also the relationship between poverty and the gender differential. The assessment is restricted to the indicators of the basic ‘functionings’ of ‘being healthy’, ‘being educated’, ‘being nourished’ and some composite indices which combine the indicators of individual functionings. Of the ‘being healthy’ indicators assessed, a disaggregated under-10 sex ratio (0-4 years and 5-9 years) appears to be sensitive to gender differentials. We believe that it could be a more reliable indicator than the overall female male ratio, life expectancy at birth, maternal mortality rates and morbidity assessment. Of the ‘being educated’ indicators, flow variables (especially gender differentials in enrolment rates), which assess education in younger age groups appear to be more useful and sensitive to gender differentials in developing countries than stock variables (like adult literacy and mean years of schooling). In countries with universal primary, secondary and tertiary education, an index of segregation in fields of study could provide interesting information. Indicators of ‘being nourished’ suffer from drawbacks related to data collection and interpretation which reduce their value as reliable indicators of gender differential. Of the composite indicators assessed, we identify certain alterations to each component of the Gender-related Development Index, which are worthy of further investigation. It is possible that these modifications could make the Index more relevant for use in developing countries. The evidence reviewed in this paper also suggests that except for the gender gap in education, it is not evident that gender inequality is universally higher amongst low income groups. Implications for policy and research relate to the proposal for collecting data related to gender-sensitive indicators in national censuses, the need to gender disaggregate data for differing levels of income and the need to feed research about social processes of gender differentials into policy in order to raise awareness and increase the effective use of indicators by policy makers.