Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

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Notes
14. The pension is paid out of general government revenues and accounts for 1.4
percent of GDP (Burns, Keswell, and Leibbrandt forthcoming).
15. Barrientos (1998) also finds that the availability of personal pension plans would
not increase the pension gender gap (which is almost nonexistent in Chile) and might
close it.
Chapter 8
1. This chapter is based on the paper written by Mala Htun (2003b) commissioned
by the task force.
2. A study by Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobatón (1999) found a strong, negative,
and statistically significant relationship between the proportion of women in a country’s
legislature and the level of corruption as measured by the International Country Risk Guide
corruption index. For a large cross-section of countries Dollar, Fisman, and Gatti (2001)
found that the level of corruption fell as women’s representation in parliament increased.
Another study using several datasets shows that corruption is less severe where women
constitute a larger share of the labor force and hold a larger share of parliamentary seats
(Swamy and others 2001).
3. Regional and country breakdowns for women’s representation in national parliaments
are based on data provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
4. These countries are: Australia, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Eritrea,
Germany, Grenada, Guyana, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lesotho, New
Zealand, Nicaragua, Poland, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles,
Spain, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Uganda,
and Viet Nam.
5. The countries are: Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Cape Verde, China,
Congo, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia,
Malawi, Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nauru, Niger, Romania, São Tomé and Principe,
Sri Lanka, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
6. Though the text of the Mexican law suggests that the quota applies to both the
proportional representation and the plurality elections, sanctions for noncompliance are
administered only for proportional representation elections.
Chapter 9
1. This section draws heavily on Moser and Moser (2003). The task force is grateful
to Caroline Moser and Annalise Moser for permission to draw on several sections of their
work.
2. For comprehensive overviews of debates identifying such issues, see Pickup, Williams,
and Sweetman (2001); WHO (2002b); Buvinic, Morrison, and Shifter in Morrison
and Biehl (1999); Spindel, Levy, and Connor (2000).
3. The most common reasons for underreporting include fear of retaliation by the
attacker, cultural stigma, and the belief that such violence is justified as a legitimate aspect
of a woman’s role (Pickup, Williams, and Sweetman 2001; UNICEF 2000). Underrecording
often occurs where gender-based violence is not considered a crime.
4. Most systematic studies have been carried out in industrial countries. Those undertaken
in developing countries are generally very localized.
5. Gender-based violence is not inevitable. An ethnographic study of 90 societies
around the world identified societies in which gender-based violence seems not to exist
(Levinson 1989).
6. In an extreme case in 1991 at a school in Meru, Kenya, after 71 teenage girls were
raped by their classmates and 19 others were killed, the school’s principal stated, “The boys
never meant any harm against the girls. They just wanted to rape” (Green 1999).