Background and Contextthe Russian Federation for employment. The lack of “acceptable” local jobs for <strong>Armenia</strong>nmen seems to have resulted in men becoming entrenched in those few areas where jobsare available (e.g.,politics, business, construction, and industry), leaving women mainly tooccupy public sector jobs in education and health care. Further, as perceptions about maleand female roles remain strong across generations, these not only limit women’s economicopportunities but also prevent men from exploring nontraditional occupations.11. A regional survey of attitudes toward gender in the three countries of the SouthernCaucasus (i.e., <strong>Armenia</strong>, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) indicated that <strong>Armenia</strong> and Azerbaijantend to emphasize more traditional gender roles, and in global terms are often closer inattitude to Middle Eastern and Asian countries. Georgia, meanwhile, is more inclined toaspire to gender equality, and in this sense is closer to countries in Western Europe andthe Americas. 4 However, upon closer inspection, attitudes are more nuanced in <strong>Armenia</strong>.While most <strong>Armenia</strong>ns take a traditional view that men should have priority for jobs whenthey are scarce, they do not share a perception that education is less important for girlsthan boys. 5 <strong>Armenia</strong> is also one of the few countries in the world where people perceivewomen to have better lives than men, despite the fact that in actuality, men and womenrecord equal levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with life. Such findings about thestate of gender equality in <strong>Armenia</strong> are not conclusive, but they offer an interesting lensthrough which to view other indicators of how women and men are faring in their access toa range of opportunities and resources.2. Gender Equality Indexes for <strong>Armenia</strong>12. Indicators of human development, and particularly of the gender dimensions ofdevelopment, suggest that progress toward gender equality in <strong>Armenia</strong> has been slow, andthat while some fields exhibit positive indicators in equality, others lag behind.13. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) uses the GenderInequality Index to measure the extent to which national development achievementsare eroded by gender inequality. It is based on five indicators in the areas of reproductivehealth, the labor market, and empowerment. <strong>Armenia</strong>’s 2013 score of 0.325 representsa 33% loss in achievement due to gender inequality. This score is close to the regionalaverage for Europe and Central Asia of 0.317, 6 and it also represents a rank of 60 out of 149countries in the 2013 index.14. In 2014, UNDP introduced the Gender Development Index, which is based onsex-disaggregated data from the Human Development Index. The Gender DevelopmentIndex is the ratio of the female to the male Human Development Index, and so it takesinto consideration gender gaps experienced by both men and women. In 2013, the ratio ofHuman Development Index values for women and men in <strong>Armenia</strong> was 0.994, meaningthat the gender gap in human development is small but comparable to the gap observedfor Europe and Central Asia combined (Table 1).4 Caucasus Research Resource Centers. 2011. How Does the South Caucasus Compare? 8(48). http://www.crrccenters.org/20133/E-bulletin5 Ibid., pp. 2 and 6.6 Under the Gender Inequality Index, zero indicates that men and women fare equally, and there are no losses due to inequality. A scoreof 1.00 signifies that women fare as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions. UNDP. Human Development Reports: GenderInequality Index. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii3
<strong>Armenia</strong> Country Gender AssessmentTable 1:Gender and Development Indexes for <strong>Armenia</strong>, Azerbaijan, and GeorgiaGender Development Index,2013Global Gender Gap Index,2013CountryHDI Values(female/male)Value(female–male HDI)Score(1= full equality)Rank(out of 136 countries)<strong>Armenia</strong> 0.725/0.729 0.994 0.663 94Azerbaijan 0.723/0.759 0.952 0.658 99Georgia 0.713/0.758 0.941 0.675 86HDI = Human Development Index.Sources: UNDP. 2014. Human Development Report 2014—Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and BuildingResilience.New York. Statistical Annex, Table 5; World Economic Forum. 2013. Global Gender Gap Report 2013. Geneva.15. The Global Gender Gap Index is used by the World Economic Forum to measurethe magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities in economic participation andopportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. In2013, <strong>Armenia</strong> received a score of 0.663, indicating little or no progress since 2007, whenthe country scored 0.665. 716. Scores by subindex reveal where the gender gaps are the most acute in <strong>Armenia</strong>and in which areas gaps are lessening. The Global Gender Gap Index scores for educationalattainment (e.g., literacy rate and school enrollment) and for health and survival (e.g.,healthy life expectancy) are high, and this positive trend has continued for a number ofyears (Figure 1). Yet scores for economic participation and opportunity (e.g., labor forceparticipation; wage equality; and numbers of senior, professional, and technical workers)and political empowerment (e.g., women in the National Assembly and ministerialpositions) are lower and offset the other positive indicators of equality. Across time, it isalso clear that scores for the economic and political spheres have remained consistently1.000.800.600.400.20Figure 1: Global Gender Gap Subindex Trends, 2007–20130.002007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013Economic participationand opportunityEducationalattainmentHealth and survivalPoliticalempowermentSource: World Economic Forum. 2013. Global Gender Gap Report 2013. Geneva.7 Countries are scored on a scale in which 1.00 is the highest (i.e., full equality) and zero the lowest. World Economic Forum. 2013. GlobalGender Gap Report 2013. Geneva.4
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