The Women’s Economic Opportunity Index: The first of its kind

To gain a better understanding of the factors that influence women’s economic opportunity – and how countries have addressed them – the Economist Intelligence Unit has constructed a pilot Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, the first of its kind. This index builds on, and extends, prior work done by the UN Development Program on its Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.

Women’s economic opportunity is defined as a set of laws, regulations, practices, customs and attitudes that allow women to participate in the workforce under conditions roughly equal to those of men, whether as wage-earning employees or as owners of a business. The goal of this index is to spur debate and research on the factors that affect women’s ability to access jobs and business opportunities. It is also intended to prompt improvements in policy and programs that will encourage women’s participation in the workplace and thus create more productive economies overall.

Working closely with a panel of experts and advisers, the index has indentified determinants of women’s economic opportunity in the formal sector, from educational attainment to legal and regulatory restrictions. Gender-related data has been collected and analyzed from a wide range of trusted international sources, including the World Bank, the UN, the International Labor Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the OECD. Existing datasets have been supplemented with new indicators created and scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s own team of analysts and contributors. The new indicators attempt to capture information that research shows is important to women’s economic opportunity but for which there are no globally comparable data, such as access to childcare and the availability of training for women running small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The result is a new ranking of economic opportunity for women in 113 economies.

What the index shows

The figure below ranks the best and the worst countries according to the economic opportunities available to women. Sweden, Belgium, and Norway occupy the top spots. These countries have particularly open labor markets for women, high levels of educational achievement, and liberal legal and social regimes. Hong Kong (China) performs best in the Asia region, ranking in the top 25% in most categories. Mauritius is Africa’s best performer; its labor policies are among the most favorable to women in the region. Excluding Canada and the US, Brazil edges Chile and Mexico for the best score in the Americas. Eastern European countries have particularly balanced labor-law protections, although retirement ages for men and women are often different. Tunisia comes first in Northern Africa, and Sri Lanka in Southern Asia.

The index reveals laggards as well as leaders. Chad, Yemen and Sudan fill the bottom three spots in the index. Only 20% of women in Chad can read and write, and teenage girls are more likely to become pregnant there than anywhere else.

 
Highest and lowest rated in the Women’s Economic Opportunity Index - click here for larger image.

For more information, the index is detailed here:  http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/WEO_report_June_2010.pdf