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to women who make up 70 percent of caregivers” (Whiteside & Lee, 2006, p. 387). This responsibility isreflected in the gender gap in the estimated income because being the main caregiver of a householdrequires women to stay at home or very small income supplements in the informal sector rather thanfinding employment outside of the home." The high rate of domestic violence and sexual abuse is another major factor that impacts lifeexpectancy and women’s wellbeing in South Africa. Jewkes studied gender violence in South Africastated that, “a women is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours, a probable underestimatebecause no perpetrator is identified in 20 percent of killings. That is double the rate of such murders inthe United States” (Faul, 2013, para. 6). While South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutionsin the continent regarding women’s rights, the current legislation has had minimal effect on protectingwomen from domestic violence or encouraging the reporting of incidents." The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Violence against Women and Children found that even when“victims reported cases of domestic violence to police or social workers, [...] their plea for help fell ondeaf ears or they were told to resolve the matter with their partners” (Faul, 2013, para. 10). Female lifeexpectancy may actually be significantly lower if the amount of gender violence, especially when itresults in a loss of life, were to be calculated in the GDI." The main strength in the GEM is that it includes the percentage of females in technical,professional, administrative, and management positions that are included in this measure. It is anindicator concerning access to economic resources since these jobs are higher paying jobs. Dijkstraargued that, “access to administrative and management positions reflects to some extent decisionmaking power in society, while access to technical and professional occupations reflect opportunities forcareer development” (2001, p. 322). This indicator reflects increased employment opportunities forwomen, which measures the extent of female power. The higher the share of women in these positionsthe more power women will have on average in the household. Dijkstra also suggests that in comparisonto the number of women elected into parliament, this indicator is less vulnerable to the changing politicalclimates (2001, p. 322)." The female share in parliament is a strong indicator for relative female power in society. Inaddition, there is data readily available from many countries regarding the number of females inparliament. Unfortunately, there is little or no information on female elected officials at regional and locallevels (Dijkstra, 2001). As a result, the accuracy of this indicator to provide the reality for most SouthAfrican women is limited to perceptions regarding women’s power and wellbeing associated with theirrepresentation in parliament. Chant suggested that female representation in parliament may be importantas it indicates several features of women’s wellbeing including gender discrimination in the workplace orchanging attitudes to women decision makers. However, this measure excludes the majority of womenin many societies whose daily duties and lives remain generally unaffected by national politics ad whoown local participation in politics are more likely to be restricted to local levels (2003, p.24)." For example in South Africa women's representation in local government has climbed steadily“from 19 percent in after the 1995 elections to 29.6 percent after the 2000 local elections to 40 percentafter the 2006 elections” (EISA, 2009, para. 3). Another reason for the rising levels of women in localpolitics is due to the African National Congress (ANC) commitment to reaching a minimum quota of 30percent females within the political party. This trend would suggest the importance of incorporatinginvolvement in local politics as part of this measure.GENERAL FINDINGS: GDI AND GEMTable 1: South Africa Human Development Report 2009: Data from 200735