Having such a list of gender equality indicators is an important step forward, but does not solve the data availability problem. Currently, country coverage of many indicators is limited and data on some of these indicators is unavailable. For example:
Few low-income countries officially report the share of women employed as own account workers, contributing family workers, and proportion of employed who are employers.
No country officially reports data for other indicators of economic opportunities in the list, such as access to credit and land ownership. The best available data are on use of (rather than access to) financial services from the GlobalFindex
Cross-country comparable data is also scarce on other key aspects such as percentage of firms owned by women, and time use and availability of formal and informal child care. With the exception of the gender statistics program from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe program (UNECE), such data are often only available from specialized surveys with limited comparability.
Reporting on the share of women in national parliaments, an MDG3 indicator (Promote Gender equality and empower women), is quite comprehensive, with only a few countries failing to report. This measure, however, does not fully capture the extent of women’s voice and decision-making power. Comparable data on other aspects of voice and agency such as the exposure to gender-based violence are not presently available.
For data availability of the core list of gender indicators, by International Development Association, (IDA) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, click here