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Equality is an abstract concept. I don’t believe that it is something that can easily be defined. But apparently, every year, the World Economic Forum thinks it can easily define gender equality. This year, the evaluated 128 countries. The WEF just released the Global Gender Gap Report for 2007. According to their website, it measures gender equality across the following four areas:

1. Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2. Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
3. Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio

I sat and stared at these categories for awhile and tried to figure out what about them it was that bothered me. It took me some time and a lot of thinking, but then I realized it. And it was so obvious. They didn’t even consider choice. And I’m not talking about pro-choice or anti-choice, I’m talking about the choice to excel economically or to be a stay at home father.

You can’t measure choice. And if you can’t measure choice, how can you measure equality?

A huge part of equality is the fact that you get to choose what you do with your equality. Yes, there is 20% female labor force participation in Saudi Arabia… but is it because they want to be in the work force, or is it because they have to? In the 7 countries I looked at closely (Sweden #1, Ireland #9, United Kingdom #11, Canada #18, United States #31, Saudi Arabia #124, Yemen #128) the workforce participation of men always exceeded that of women. Mozambique, which was rated #1 in Economic Participation and Opportunity (#43 overall, #120 in educational attainment), in contrast, has 85% of women but only 35% of men in the labor force population. This is also the same country that received the worst score possible on polygamy, an extremely poor score on legislation preventing violence against women, and a mid-range score on genital cutting (the report says “female genital mutilation”). How much do you think choice has to do with women being members of the labor population?

Studies such as these rely heavily on statistics and the use of surveys, which, to a point, delivers the facts. But the statistics deliver facts in a very scientific way. This study doesn’t taken into account the satisfaction people feel towards their gender equality - or lack thereof. While it is a huge step that studies like this are being done, they have yet to catch up with the things that are most important when it comes to equality. The study does make for a very interesting read, and I do encourage you to read it… but do so with a grain of salt. Statistics only give you the numbers, they don’t give you the satisfaction people feel in regards to their home, finances, government, or overall quality of life.

I feel that I should also mention the statistical profiles on each individual country mention nothing about gay marriage.

For those interested in the study, other information provided in individual country reports are:

• Mean age of marriage for women
• Fertility rate in births per woman
• Year women received the right to vote (which they list as 1965 in the United States…)
• Overall population sex ratio
• Maternity and Childbearing: births attended to by skilled health staff, contraceptive practices among married women, maternal and infant mortality rate, length of paid maternity leave, maternity leave benefits, provider of maternity coverage, adolescent fertility rate.
• Education and Training: percentage of female primary, secondary, and tertiary teachers
• Employment and Earnings: female and male adult unemployment rates, women in non-agricultural paid labor, ability of women to rise to position of enterprise leadership
• Basic Rights and Social Institutions: paternal versus maternal authority, “female genital mutilation”, polygamy, existence of legislation punishing acts of violence against women

Sweden (0.815*), the #1 ranked country on overall gender quality, also received the best score possible in all the Basic Rights and Social Institutions categories and the statistical equivalent of gender equality in terms of Educational Attainment (but they did not rank #1 for this).
* 0.00 = inequality, 1.00 = equality