Gender Development Index (GDI)

The new GDI measures gender gaps in human development achievements by accounting for disparities between women and men in three basic dimensions of human development - health, knowledge and living standards using the same component indicators as in the HDI. The GDI is the ratio of the HDIs calculated separately for females and males using the same methodology as in the HDI. It is a direct measure of gender gap showing the female HDI as a percentage of the male HDI. For more details on computation see Technical Notes.

The GDI is calculated for 161 countries. Countries are grouped into five groups based on the absolute deviation from gender parity in HDI values. This means that grouping takes equally into consideration gender gaps favoring males, as well as those favoring females.

The GDI shows how much women are lagging behind their male counterparts and how much women need to catch up within each dimension of human development. It is good for understanding the real gender gap in human development achievements and is useful to design policy tools to close the gap.