Chapter 1. SIGI 2019 results

This chapter presents an overview of regional trends and results from the 2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) and its four dimensions: discrimination in the family, physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources, and civil liberties. It outlines the main areas of progress and challenges regarding formal and informal laws, social norms and practices related to gender equality in Eurasia. It emphasises sub-regional disparities and the heterogeneity of progress.

SIGI overview

Eurasia has made progress on reforming laws and shifting social norms detrimental to gender equalityNational legal reforms have enhanced gender equality in the region and abolished a large number of discriminatory laws. All countries grant women and men equal parental authority and the same rights and responsibilities with regard to their children during marriage and after divorce. All countries have adopted measures to offer paid maternity leave, while paid parental leave entitlements are also available in 7 out of 12 countries.1 Eurasia is one of the world’s regions where women’s reproductive autonomy rights are best protected in cases of non-desired pregnancy, with abortion on demand being legal in all 12 countries. All Eurasian countries also explicitly recognise equal rights of inheritance and ownership of land and non-land assets. Furthermore, gender discriminatory social norms have become less prominent. For instance, the social acceptance of domestic violence decreased from 27% in 2014 to 21% in 2018.

Figure 1.1. SIGI 2019 results by sub-region

As a result, Eurasia performs relatively well on gender equality in social institutions. The SIGI ranks countries from 0% for no discrimination to 100% for absolute discrimination; a low score is therefore preferable to a high score. SIGI 2019 results indicate that the level of discrimination in social institutions in the Eurasia region is 24%, ranging from 21% in Eastern Europe to 27% in the Caucasus (Figure 1.1), compared to 29% at the global level. Nine of the region’s 12 countries have low levels of discrimination, one has medium levels of discrimination while two are not ranked due to missing data (Box 1.1, Figure 1.2). Globally, discrimination levels are lower in Western Europe (12%), Northern Europe (15%) and Southern Europe (18%), and in North America (18%) and East Asia (22%), but Eurasia performs better than Latin America and the Caribbean (25%), Southeast Asia (35%), Africa (40%), Western Asia (41%) and South Asia (48%).

Box 1.1. SIGI 2019 classification

The SIGI scores 120 countries, including 10 out of 122 Eurasian countries, and classifies them into five groups:

Very low level of discrimination (SIGI < 20%): 33 countries, representing 28% of the countries ranked. No Eurasian country has been classified in this group.
Low level of discrimination (20% < SIGI < 30%): 42 countries, representing 35% of the countries ranked. Nine of the ten Eurasian countries have been classified in this group (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, and Ukraine).
Medium level of discrimination (30% < SIGI < 40%): 16 countries, representing 13% of the countries ranked. One Eurasian country has been classified in this group (Tajikistan).
High level of discrimination (40% < SIGI < 50%): 17 countries, representing 14% of the countries ranked. No Eurasian country has been classified in this group.
Very high level of discrimination (SIGI > 50%): 12 countries, representing 10% of the countries ranked. No Eurasian country has been classified in this group.

The Soviet legacy helps to explain Eurasia’s relatively good performance but also persistent gender gaps, particularly on wages and family responsibilities. Recognising the economic, social and political potential of women, the Soviet Union enacted legal reforms promoting women’s emergence from the confines of the household into the wider public arena. This partly explains the relatively good performance of the region’s 12 countries, of which all except Mongolia are former Soviet republics. For example, the Soviet Union adopted legislation during the early 1920s establishing equal rights to hold land, to act as heads of households and to participate as full members in rural communes, and also establishing civil marriage, easy divorce, abortion services, maternity pay and childcare facilities (Ishkanian, 2003[1]). These changes had profound consequences on relations between women and men (Lapidus, 1978[2]), as evidenced by the high rates of female participation in the labour force, in the Communist Party and in local governments. However, gender wage gap and occupational segregation were also the norm during this period (World Bank, 1999[3]). In addition, the traditional division of labour within the family persisted, resulting in a “double burden” as women were increasingly engaged in the labour market without benefitting from affordable domestic workers (World Bank, 1999[3]).

Some laws still undermine efforts to protect women’s rights. No country in the region explicitly provides women with the same right as men to be recognised as the head of household. Legislation still restricts women’s workplace rights, with five countries prohibiting women from working the same night hours as men (Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine), and ten from entering certain types of jobs (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan).

Legal loopholes expose women to discriminatory practices. Turkmenistan is the region’s only country where marriage before age 18 is banned with no exceptions. In the remaining 11 countries, girls are allowed to marry below age 18 with parental or judicial consent. As a result, and although the regional prevalence of girl child marriage (8%) is below the global average (16%), this rate remains much higher than the rate of boy child marriage (2%). In addition, no Eurasian country has yet provided women with comprehensive legal protection from all forms of violence. The main legal loopholes include the non-criminalisation of sexual harassment (in ten countries3), domestic violence (in five countries4) and marital rape (in eight countries5).

Customs, traditions and religious practices also weaken legal protections. Entrenched patrilineal inheritance systems in Central Asia and the Caucasus still grant daughters and/or widows a lower share of inheritance than sons and/or widowers. Similarly, traditional patrilineal kinship systems limit women’s land rights. Payment of a “bride price”6 continues to undercut women’s legal right to file for divorce in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Social norms continue to hamper women’s empowerment opportunities. The pervasive view of women’s role as caregivers restricts their access to economic opportunities. At the regional level, 16% of the population thinks it is not acceptable for a woman in their family to work outside the home for pay, and this rises to 22% in Central Asia. In Belarus, 68% of households favour traditional family arrangements where the man works and the woman takes care of the house and children. Even when women are working, social norms confine them to jobs with low pay and responsibility: 56% of the population considers that men make better business executives than women do, ranging from 46% in Ukraine and up to 75% in Azerbaijan. Social norms also affect women’s access to entrepreneurship. In Armenia, for example, female entrepreneurs have to be accompanied by male relatives for business meals or networking events. Similar discriminatory attitudes can be observed with regard to women’s role in politics: 62% of the region’s population believes that men make better political leaders than women do.

Entrenched social expectations about male roles hamper gender equality. Although paid parental leave schemes are granted in seven7 of the 12 Eurasian countries, men are unlikely to take their paternity or parental leave entitlements. For example, only 1% of Belarusian men take advantage of parental leave. Traditional norms and views of masculinity are reflected in fathers’ reluctance to share caring responsibilities and benefit from paid leave schemes. In Armenia, for example, 87% of men declare that they would not take paternity leave after the birth of a child (compared to 23% of women), and 48% state that this is because their spouse or someone else would be responsible for childcare (2% of women). Moreover, expression of hegemonic masculinities8 through domestic violence by men is still largely accepted. One in five Eurasian woman, and up to one in three in Central Asia, declares that a husband is justified in beating his wife under certain circumstances, such as burning a meal.

The intensity and forms of discrimination vary significantly across Eurasia (Figure 1.3). Women in Mongolia face the lowest level of discrimination in social institutions as measured by the SIGI (20%), while the level in Tajikistan is 32%. The Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are characterised by alarming levels of “missing women”,9 while countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia show no evidence of son bias in sex ratios. Girl child marriage remains a concern in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where 14% of girls aged 15-19 are married, divorced or widowed, compared to 5% of girls in Armenia.

Figure 1.3. Levels of discrimination in Eurasia

Progress and challenges in the SIGI dimensions

The relatively good performance of the Eurasia region in the SIGI is reflected in all dimensions (Box 1.2), but prominent sub-regional disparities are evidence of differences in social norms and practices (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.4. SIGI sub-regional results in the four dimensions

Box 1.2. About the SIGI

The OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a unique cross-country measure of discriminatory social institutions: formal and informal laws, and social norms and practices that restrict women’s and girls’ rights and access to empowerment opportunities and resources.

The SIGI is comprised of four components:

country profiles containing comprehensive qualitative information on legal frameworks and action plans to protect women’s rights and promote gender equality (for 180 countries)10
the Gender, Institutions and Development Database comprising variables measuring the level of discrimination in laws (categorical variable), social norms (attitudinal data) and practices (prevalence rates) for 180 countries11
a cross-country ranking classifying 120 countries according to their level of discrimination in social institutions (for Eurasia results, see Annex A, Table A.1)
a policy simulator allowing policy makers to scope out reform options and assess their likely effects on gender equality in social institutions (oe.cd/sigiSIM).

It is worth noting that while the SIGI score is available for only 120 countries (including ten Eurasian countries), variables measuring the level of discrimination in laws, social norms or practices are available for each of 180 countries, including the 12 Eurasian countries analysed in this regional report (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1. List of Eurasian countries by sub-region
Caucasus	Central Asia	Eastern Europe
Armenia	Kazakhstan	Belarus
Azerbaijan	Kyrgyzstan	Moldova
Georgia	Mongolia	Ukraine
	Tajikistan
	Turkmenistan
	Uzbekistan

The SIGI and its dimensions look at the gaps that legislation, attitudes and practices create between women and men in terms of rights and opportunities. The SIGI covers four dimensions spanning major socio-economic areas that affect the entire lifetimes of women and girls (Figure 1.5), and that are analysed in the SIGI as sub-indices.

The discrimination in the family (DF) dimension captures social institutions that limit women’s decision-making power and that undervalue their status in the household and the family.
The restricted physical integrity (RPI) dimension captures social institutions that increase the vulnerability of women and girls to a range of forms of violence and that limit women’s control over their bodies and reproductive autonomy.
The restricted access to productive and financial resources (RAPFR) dimension captures women’s restricted access to and control over critical productive and economic resources and assets.
The restricted civil liberties (RCL) dimension captures discriminatory laws and practices restricting women’s access to and participation and voice in the public and social spheres.

Discrimination in the family

The regional level of discrimination in the family (31%) is much lower than the global average (44%). Yet, it is significantly higher than in Western, Northern and Southern European countries (19%, 22% and 28%, respectively), as well as Eastern Asian and Northern American countries (25% and 27%, respectively).

Formal and informal laws, social norms and practices governing the family are the most difficult area to change, exposing women to high levels of discrimination in Eurasia, and especially in the Caucasus and in Central Asia where levels of discrimination are respectively 31% and 34%, compared to 26% in Eastern Europe. Across the region, legal loopholes and discriminatory social norms perpetuate women’s subordinate status and lower their decision-making power in the household. Societal expectation on gender roles are reflected in findings on women’s lower status in the household and the pressure women face to perform domestic chores and child rearing.

Women across Eurasia continue to be responsible for nearly all domestic chores in addition to working outside the home (the “double burden”). Women perform on average 2.5 times more unpaid care and domestic work than men per day. For example, women spend four hours a day on such work in Kyrgyzstan and six hours in Azerbaijan, compared to two hours for men in both countries.
The stigmatisation of working mothers is persistent. On average, 38% of Eurasian respondents declare that children will suffer when a mother is in paid employment, ranging from 32% in Belarus to 65% in Georgia.

Restricted physical integrity

With a regional level of discrimination of 20%, the protection of women’s physical integrity in Eurasia is relatively similar to the global average (22%). Female genital mutilation (FGM) does not seem to be an issue in the region except in some Georgian communities, and reproductive autonomy is well guaranteed. However, violence against women is a pervasive issue across the region: 17% of women have suffered physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime, and up to 46% in Moldova.

Moreover, sub-regional disparities are huge. Within the region, Eastern European and Central Asian countries exhibit low levels of discrimination (14% and 15%), in line with those of the best performing regions: Western, Southern and Northern Europe (11%, 12% and 13% respectively). In contrast, countries in the Caucasus have among the highest levels of discrimination in this dimension worldwide (32%, compared to 36% in West Africa, the poorest performer). This poor performance is explained by the persistent phenomenon of “missing women”. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have alarmingly unbalanced sex ratios among children aged 0-4, with 170 000 missing girls and women aged 0-19 years in the three countries.

Restricted access to productive and financial resources

The level of discrimination against women’s access to productive and financial resources is similar in Eurasia (26%) to the global average (27%), with significant homogeneity within the region. The Eurasian performance is significantly less good than that of the Pacific (5%), Northern Europe (6%), Western Europe (6%), North America (14%), Southern Europe (18%), Latin America (23%) and East Asia (24%).

Solid political commitments in the region to improve women’s access to productive and financial resources have not been fully translated into narrowed gender gaps in outcomes. All countries have taken the necessary steps to remove legal restrictions against women’s rights to land and non-land assets and financial services by enshrining gender equality in legal frameworks. Similarly, all Eurasian countries have adopted measures to offer paid maternity leave, while paid parental leave entitlements are available in seven countries. However, persisting social norms result in lower economic power: only 27% of the region’s land and 35% of managerial positions are held by women.

Restricted civil liberties

An upsurge of support for women’s rights activism has led to substantial advances in securing women’s civil liberties: Eurasia (21%) has lower levels of discrimination than the global average (29%), with high homogeneity across the region. Eurasian countries’ performance is quite similar to that of Latin America (20%), while Western, Southern and Northern European countries do slightly better (11%, 15% and 17% respectively).

Yet the legal protection of women’s civil liberties has not been fully translated into gender parity. In all countries, legal frameworks provide women and men with equal rights to citizenship, participation in politics and travel, and with equal access to justice. Eight countries12 in the region have introduced or strengthened measures to promote gender-balanced political representation. However, stereotypes about women’s role and leadership abilities restrain their political voice, while threats of violence restrict their freedom of movement. Public spaces and infrastructure are not built to best address women’s needs: women represent 69% of people who do not feel safe walking alone at night in their neighbourhood.

Figure 1.5. The composition of the SIGI 2019

References

[1] Ishkanian, A. (2003), “Gendered Transitions: The Impact of the Post-Soviet Transition on Women in Central Asia and the Caucasus”, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, Vol. 2/3-4, pp. 475-496, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.576.7881&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed on 24 March 2019).

[4] Lapidus, G. (2000), “Discussant’s Comments”, in Lazreg, M. (ed.), Making the Transition Work for Women in Europe and Central Asia, World Bank Group, Washington, https://doi.org/10.1596/0-8213-4662-8.

[2] Lapidus, G. (1978), Women in Soviet society : equality, development, and social change, University of California Press.

[3] World Bank (1999), Making the Transition Work for Women in Europe and Central Asia, World Bank Discussion Paper No. 411, Europe and Central Asia Gender and Development Series, World Bank Group, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/601011468778816071/pdf/multi-page.pdf (accessed on 24 March 2019).

Notes

← 1. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

← 2. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are not ranked as there is missing data on restricted physical integrity and restricted access to productive and financial resources.

← 3. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

← 4. Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

← 5. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

← 6. Bride price is generally paid by the groom or the groom’s family to the bride’s family. Dowry is generally paid by the bride’s family to the bride or to the wedded couple.

← 7. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan

← 8. Cultural norm that continuously connects men to power and economic achievements. This pattern of masculinity, which shapes the hegemonic position, is not only adverse to equality and inclusion, but also brings disadvantages and costs for men (EIGE, n.d).

← 9. The “missing women” phenomenon is captured by a shortfall in the number of girls aged 0-4, relative to their expected survival rate in the absence of sex-selective abortions, female infanticide and with similar levels of health and nutrition to boys.

← 10. Available at www.genderindex.org/.

← 11. Available at https://stats.oecd.org/. The number of countries covered depends on data availability.

← 12. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

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