Socio-economic Status of Women in Very High Human Development Countries: Cluster Analysis

Human development is a people-centered approach to development. Instead of focusing on economic growth, human development focuses on the ability of development to respond to human needs and build human capacity. The United Nations (UN) compares countries every year with the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI, which is prepared by taking the geometric averages of the Healthy Living Index, the Education Index, and the Standard of Living Index, provides information about the welfare standard of both countries and individuals. According to the HDI, countries are divided into four categories. Gender is also a part of human development. The place of women in social, economic, and political life and their representation in these areas are decisive for the human development level of countries. Gender comparisons for countries are made and reported by international organizations. In this study, countries with very high human development are compared in terms of gender data. The data set of the study consists of data from the HDI 2023 report prepared by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and gender data from the World Bank. In the study where 13 variables were selected from the World Bank data, the headings where gender inequality is most evident were preferred. The study is conducted with the data mining method. In the study, 69 countries in the very high human development category of the HDI Report are taken into consideration for the analysis. However, since the data of 10 countries out of 69 countries could not be accessed, the analysis is carried out with the data of 59 countries. The data are evaluated according to canopy, hierarchical, and K-means algorithms, and the algorithm with the highest Silhouette score is preferred. In the analysis according to the Canopy clustering algorithm, countries are divided into 4 clusters.