ABSTRACT
According to the EU website, ‘equality between women and men is a fundamental right, a common value of the EU, and a necessary condition for the achievement of the EU objectives of growth, employment and social cohesion’. Yet the position of men and women still differs considerably. Women have a lower participation rate, for example, have less political power and are more susceptible to poverty. Given this difference between the stated policy goal and the actual state of affairs, an effective monitoring of gender equality, based on a common set of indicators, seems important. These indicators can reveal strong or weak aspects of a national situation and facilitate inter-country comparisons. The indicators may also be combined in one single figure, a gender equality index. Such an index is very useful to identify relative success in promoting gender equality and to monitor progress over time. Over the last few decades, the relevance and importance of indices in the field of gender equality has been recognised, and several indices have been developed.
