JRC Statistical Audit of the 2020 Gender Equality Index

The 2020 Gender Equality Index (GEI) ranks the 27 EU member states and the UK on 31 performance indicators measuring gender equalities in the six domains of work, money, knowledge, time, power, health and additionally the domain of violence, as well as intersecting inequalities. By providing relevant statistics, data and measures, all essential components for evidence-based policymaking and successful gender mainstreaming, it supports the assessment of policy outcomes on women and men. Since 2013 the Gender Equality Index is released biannually by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) while from 2019 and on, the releases will be on annual basis. The European Commission’s Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) was invited by the European Institute for Gender Equality to audit the 2020 edition of the GEI. The statistical audit presented herein aims to contribute to ensuring the transparency of the GEI methodology and the reliability of the results. The report touches upon data quality issues, the conceptual and statistical coherence of the framework and the impact of modelling assumptions on the results. The analysis suggests that meaningful inferences can be drawn from the Gender Equality Index. It confirms that the 2020 GEI meets the quality standards for statistical soundness and acknowledges it as a reliable composite indicator to measure gender equality in the European Union. ; JRC.I.1 - Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluation