Gender Equality in a Historical Perspective: Introducing the Historical Gender Equality Index

Gender equality has intrinsic importance and may also be a driver of economic development. Since the 1990s various attempts have therefore been made to create composite indices to evaluate countries’ performances in terms of the position of women in a multidimensional perspective. However, these indices often lack historical coverage, limiting a long-term perspective on the link between gender equality and development. This study introduces a new composite index of gender equality covering 129 countries between 1950 and 2003 (The Historical Gender Equality Index or HGEI). Overall our study reveals that around the globe significant progress has been made in closing the gender gap. However, progress was limited in the Middle East and North Africa. We conclude that our composite measure allows for the observation of macro-level trends in gender equality but that much work remains to be done both to push back indicators of female empowerment further in time and to explore the determinants of gender equality.