Measuring Socio-Economic GENDER Inequality: Toward an Alternative to the UNDP Gender-Related Development Index
评估联合国开发计划署的性别相关发展指数（GDI），指出其混淆相对性别平等与绝对人类发展水平的问题，并构建相对妇女地位指数（RSW）展示不同排名，最后提出替代衡量性别不平等的概念框架。
This paper assesses the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Gender-Related Development Index (GDI). Although the GDI has increased attention on gender equality in human development, it suffers from several limitations. A major problem is that it conflates relative gender equality with absolute levels of human development and thus gives no information on comparative gender inequality among countries. Using the same indicators as the GDI, the paper constructs a Relative Status of Women (RSW) index, which demonstrates how using a measure of gender equality that abstracts from levels of development results in very different country rankings. However, the RSW is not an ideal measure of gender inequality. The GDI indicators are not the most appropriate ones for measuring gender inequality and hence both the RSW and the GDI have limited validity. The paper concludes by offering a conceptual framework that provides the basis for an alternative measure of gender inequality.