Women's Economic Opportunity Index - Economist Intelligence Unit

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Appendix IWomen’s economic opportunityA new global index and ranking108. Intimate Partner Violence:High Costs to Households andCommunities, International Centrefor Research on Women: WashingtonDC, 2009.109. Costs of Intimate PartnerViolence against Women in the UnitedStates, Centres for Disease Controland Prevention: Atlanta, 2003.110. T Day, The health-relatedcosts of violence against womenin Canada: The tip of the iceberg,Centre for Research on ViolenceAgainst Women and Children:London ON, 1995. Cited in MeasuringViolence Against Women, StatisticalTrends 2006, Statistics Canada:Ottawa, 2006.111. The Cost of Domestic Violenceto the Australian Economy: Part I,Access Economics, 2004. Cited in“The National Council to ReduceViolence against Women and theirChildren”, March 2009.The Cost of Violence against Womenand their Children, Commonwealth ofAustralia: Canberra.112. S Narube, Economic Costs ofViolence Against Women, ReserveBank of Fiji: Suva.113. H Waters, A Hyder, Y Rajkotia,S Basu, J A Rehwinkel, A Butchart,The economic dimensions ofinterpersonal violence, Departmentof Injuries and Violence Prevention,World Health Organisation: Geneva,2004.114. WHO Multi-country Study onWomen’s Health and DomesticViolence against Women, WorldHealth Organisation: Geneva, 2005.115. A Morrison, M Ellsberg and SBott, “Addressing Gender-BasedViolence: A Critical Review ofInterventions”, The World BankObserver, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2007, pages25-51.116. L Dugan, “Domestic ViolenceLegislation: Exploring Its Impact onthe Likelihood of Domestic Violence,Police Involvement, and Arrest”,Criminology and Public Policy, Vol. 2,Issue 2, 2003, pages 283-311.A P Worden, “The ChangingBoundaries of the Criminal JusticeSystem: Redefining the Problem andthe Response in Domestic Violence”,in C M Friel (ed.), Boundary Changesin Criminal Justice OrganisationsVolume 2, National Institute ofJustice: Washington DC, 2000, pages215-266.117. The UN Secretary-General’sDatabase on Violence against Womenis maintained by The Division for theAdvancement of Women/Departmentof Economic and Social Affairs(DAW/DESA), which functions asthe secretariat of the database.The primary source of informationfor the database is the responsesreceived from member states to thequestionnaire on violence againstwomen, of September 2008, andsubsequent updates. http://webapps01.un.org/vawdatabase/home.actionviolent incidents forced women to lose time from paid work, amounting to around 11 days a year. 108Annual costs of intimate partner violence were calculated at US$5.8bn in the US 109 and US$1.4bn inCanada. 110 In Australia, in terms of productivity losses alone, violence against women and children isestimated at US$433m per year. When combined with costs in six other categories, the cost of suchviolence reaches US$7bn. 111 In Fiji, the annual estimated cost was US$135.8m, or 7% of GDP in 2002. 112The aggregate negative effect of female productivity loss due to violence has been estimated to beequivalent to 1.6% of Nicaragua’s GDP and 2% of Chile’s GDP. 113 It should be noted that the economiccosts of violence against women cannot be directly compared between economies, owing to differingmethodologies and assumptions in research.Some progress has been made in measuring gender-based violence—most notably through a WHOmulti-country study (2005), 114 demographic and health surveys, and international violence againstwomen surveys—but it is difficult to ascertain accurately the full extent of violence against women, owingto frequent underreporting and differences in how violence is measured between countries, includingintimate partner violence. 115 However, the presence of clear and specific legislation against it can help todetermine the degree of political will and how societies view and address the problem. 116The Women’s Economic Opportunity Index bases this indicator on the existence of legislation onviolence against women captured in the UN Secretary-General’s database on violence against women, 117which is a first step towards capturing comparable cross-country information on such issues.Further readingS Bott, A Morrison and M Ellsberg, “Preventing and Responding to Gender-Based Violence in Middle- andLow-Income Countries: a Global Review and Analysis”, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No.3618, 2005.R Carrillo et al, Not a Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women, UN Development Fund for Women:New York, 2003.Intimate Partner Violence, High Costs to Households and Communities, International Centre for Researchon Women and UN Population Fund: Washington DC, 2009.Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls, UN Development Fund for Women,2010. http://www.endvawnow.org (A comprehensive online resource to guide policy, legislation, andimplementation.)In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, A/61/122/Add.1, UN General Assembly, 6th July 2006.121 Economist Intelligence Unit 2010
Appendix IWomen’s economic opportunityA new global index and ranking118. Promoting Gender EquitableOpportunities in Agricultural ValueChains: A Handbook, US Agency forInternational Development GreaterAccess to Trade Expansion (GATE)Project: Washington DC, 2009.119. E Katungi, S Edmeades andM Smale, “Gender, Social Capitaland Information Exchange inRural Uganda”, Collective Actionand Property Rights WorkingPaper No. 59, Consultative Groupon International AgriculturalResearch: Washington DC, October2006. http://www.capri.cgiar.org/pdf/capriwp59.pdf120. One Woman = One Business.Why Business and ManagementEducation for Women Is Essentialto Economic Development,International Centre for Researchon Women: Washington DC,September 2008.121. P Richardson, R Howarth andG Finnegan, “The Challenges ofGrowing Small Businesses: Insightsfrom Women Entrepreneurs inAfrica”, SEED Working Paper No.47, International Labour Office:Geneva, 2004.122. See P Fernando, and G Porter(eds.), Balancing the Load. Women,Gender and Transport, Zed Booksin association with InternationalForum for Rural Transport andDevelopment: London, 2002.R Law, “Beyond ‘women andtransport’: towards newgeographies of gender and dailymobility”, Progress in HumanGeography, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1999,pages 567-588.123. http://www.genderindex.org124. See R Jeffery and A M Basu(eds.), Girls’ Schooling, Women’sAutonomy and Fertility Change inSouth Asia, Sage Publications: NewDelhi, 1996.Z Mumtaz and S Salway, “‘I NeverGo Anywhere’: Extricating theLinks between Women’s Mobilityand Uptake of Reproductive HealthServices in Pakistan”, Social Science& Medicine, Vol. 60, Issue 8, 2005,pages 1751–1765.125. N Kabeer, “Women, Wages andIntra-Household Power Relations inUrban Bangladesh”, Developmentand Change, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1997,pages 261-302.126. S Amin, “The Poverty-Purdah Trap in Rural Bangladesh:Implications for Women’s Rolesin the Family”, Working Paper75, Population Council ResearchDivision: New York, 1995. Cited inS Salway, S Jesmin and S Rahman,Development and Change, Vol. 36Issue 2, 2005, pages 317-349.Women’s Freedom of MovementMobility is a significant factor in access to economic resources, education, health and other centralelements influencing women’s empowerment. Increasingly, it is recognised that a woman’s ability totravel easily is an important factor in accessing economic opportunities. Restrictions on a woman’smobility may limit travel to markets, and reduce her networking opportunities. This also affects her accessto business information and networks. It is useful to note that spaces where information is exchanged arenot necessarily gender-neutral. 118 For example, in Albania, market information is often received throughnetworking with colleagues in local coffee shops. These coffee shops are considered male spaces, andwomen do not comfortably congregate there. Similarly, in rural Uganda, men network in drinking clubs,spaces women are restricted from entering. 119The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) has recognised that access to non-financialservices is as important as financial services to women to access economic opportunities. 120 Such servicesinclude market information and access, management and financial training, peer networks and leadershipskills. Women entrepreneurs in developing countries have themselves identified a need for education andskills, including specialised training, financial advice, business counselling and marketing support fortheir products and services. 121 However, if women’s mobility is limited, access to such support will also bereduced.Limited mobility could stem from economic constraints. For example, women may not own or haveaccess to private means of transport, and hence are reliant on public transport or walking. 122 Mobilitycould be constrained by legal and cultural factors. The Women’s Economic Opportunity Index does notlook directly at the issues of women and transport, in part because there is little sex-disaggregated dataon the subject; the index considers infrastructure risk broadly under the “General Business Environment”category.Legal and cultural restrictions on travel that apply only to women are, however, a gender-specificconstraint that the Index attempts to address. The indicator is sourced from the OECD DevelopmentCentre, which constructed a “Women’s Freedom of Movement” indicator for its Social Institutions andGender Index. 123 The indicator is a qualitative assessment made by the OECD Development Centre, basedon country analyses done by the team.It is acknowledged that in certain contexts—notably in South Asia, and the Middle East and NorthAfrica—individual identity is subordinated to relationships and transactions with others, and a woman’swellbeing is bound to that of the larger household. 124 As one study notes, in such a context, women’slong-term interests may be better served by preserving household solidarity and co-operation rather thanmeeting one’s personal needs, and the system penalises any attempt at autonomous or individualisticforms of behaviour. 125 It is also recognised that observed mobility cannot be uncritically equated with anotion of “freedom of movement”, as it may reflect economic necessity rather than preference. 126Further ReadingL Aljounaidi, “Gender and Transport in MENA - Case Studies form West Bank, Gaza and Yemen”, MENAKnowledge and Learning, Quick Notes Series, Number 21, World Bank: Washington DC, March 2010.122 Economist Intelligence Unit 2010
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