In particular, in all countries, gender inequality in favor of men is larger in politics and economics (even in Iceland-ranked 1st out of 153 countries in equality-the female-over-male ratio in economic participation and opportunities is 0.80): in 144 out of 153 countries, the female-over-male ratio in politics does not reach 0.50 and, in half of these countries, this ratio is largely lower than 0.20, and often close to zero-in a range from 0 (indicating complete inequality) to 1 (indicating complete equality) (World Economic Forum, 2020). Nonetheless, the national gaps between men and women differ across sectors (World Economic Forum, 2020, pp. economics, politics, health, and education (European Gender Equality Institute, 2019 World Economic Forum, 2020). For years it has been a priority, but no country in the world has reached complete gender equality in the key sectors of social life, i.e. Gender equality is a timely topic in the international agenda. Such results call for more caution in interpreting results based on nationally aggregated data to inform policy and practice, arguing for regional comparisons to become more prominent. Results showed that gender equality varies dramatically across regions, also confirming the relevance of the new indicators we proposed to add. In developing our eRGGI, some indicators traditionally used to measure gender equality were removed and others were introduced to capture new dimensions of gender equality to suit modern conditions regarding contexts where equality is considered important, in contemporary Europe.

To this end, we (i) reviewed existing indicators of gender equality (ii) assessed the contribution of the indicators most frequently used in previous research to measure gender equality (iii) developed an extended, regional version of the gender gaps index (eRGGI), by extending it to include new indicators able to capture female empowerment in developed countries, like Italy and, (iv) explored the variability of gender equality across Italian regions. This paper aims to fill this gap by developing and validating a new, regional gender gaps index, compatible with previous indices used to compare gender equality across nations but now fit for the purpose of measuring gender equality across regions, within nations. Gender equality has been widely explored, but there is limited research investigating its variability at regional level.

Istat 2013