Towards a European Union Gender Equality Index

Abstract

In order to monitor progress with respect to gender equality in European Union member states, indices are extremely useful. Existing indices are, however, not appropriate because they do not focus exclusively on gender (in)equality and have not been created to be used at the European level. Therefore a European Union Gender Equality Index is presented in this article. Based on the universal caregiver model as outlined by Fraser (1997), the index is composed of four dimensions: equal sharing of paid work, money, decision-making power and time. With regard to the applied methodology, the index is constructed in such a way that the value indicates the actual distance from a situation of full equality. The empirical results show that full equality is still a long way off. Finland, Sweden and Denmark display the highest overall performance, whereas the southern countries — Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Spain and Italy — perform rather poorly.