Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Abstract Since their inception in 1995, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) have been criticized on conceptual and empirical grounds. In 2005–6, the UNDP's Human Development Report Office undertook a review of these indicators and suggested some modifications. This study extends this work by adjusting the recommendations, making concrete proposals for two gender-related indicators, and presenting illustrative results for these proposed measures. These new measures include the calculation of a male and female Human Development Index (HDI), as well as a gender gap measure (GGM) to replace the GDI as a measure of gender inequality. The study also proposes and implements several modifications and simplifications to the GEM. With these adjustments, a number of Sub-Saharan countries now rank much higher, countries in the Middle East have lower scores in both measures, and some European countries fare notably worse in the revised GEM.
Klasen et al. (2011) studied this question.