NSCB - Statistically Speaking... When will Filipino men catch up with Filipino women?

When will Filipino men catch up with Filipino women? ²

This March, the nation will celebrate the 2009 Women’s Month with the theme “Babae, Yaman Ka ng Bayan!” Spearheaded by the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), the annual celebration highlights the role of Filipino women in the social, cultural, economic, and political development in the country. This year’s theme focuses on the critical role of women in nation-building and recognizes that women are an important resource who can contribute to poverty reduction.

The Philippines is a signatory to the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It is also committed to the implementation of the 1985 Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted during the 4th World Conference on Women in 1995. In addition, the government has institutionalized various mechanisms in recognition of the role of women in nation-building. Foremost of these is the creation of the NCRFW in 1975, the formulation of the Framework Plan for Women and the 1995-2025 Philippine Plan for Gender and Development, the passage of the Women in Development and Nation-Building Act, the creation of Gender and Development (GAD) focal points in government agencies including the LGUs, and the mandatory provision of at least five percent of the agency’s or local government’s total budget for the implementation of its GAD plan.

Just recently, Senate Bill No. 2396, more popularly known as the Magna Carta of Women, which aims to protect Filipino women from all forms of gender discrimination and abuse, was ratified by the Senate with 18 senators supporting its passage. It is expected that the President will sign the bill into law this March 8 – in time for the celebration of the Women’s Month and the International Women’s Day.

With all these efforts geared towards enhancing the status of women, wouldn’t Pepe feel jealous that Pilar is getting all the attention? And refer to Pilar as “ang babaeng humugot ng aking tadyang?” Should there be a Magna Carta of Men too?

In 2008, the NSCB implemented a project on the “Development of a Methodology and Estimation of Gender Development Index (GDI) at the Local Level,” which was funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its “Achieving the MDGs and Reducing Human Poverty” program. The Project developed a methodology, which produced estimates of GDI for all provinces of the country as well as for cities and municipalities of five pilot provinces, covering the years 2000 and 2003. A National Dissemination Forum was conducted in October 2008.

quote GDI is defined by the UNDP as a measure of human development that adjusts the Human Development Index (HDI)³ for disparities between women and men. Loosely stated, the GDI “penalizes” countries for gender inequalities, adjusting the HDI downwards to account for differences in the levels of development between women and men. Hence, the value of the GDI is always lower than the corresponding HDI. It must be stressed, however, that the GDI is not a measure of gender inequality, rather, it measures the average achievement that is adjusted for gender disparity.

Patterned after the HDI framework, the GDI has the following components: gender health index (GHI), gender education index (GEI), and gender income index (GII), which separately accounts for inequality between women and men in three dimensions.

However, the GDI does not answer the question, “Who benefits more from development? Mga babae ba o mga lalake?” To address this, the NSCB Technical Staff formulated another indicator, the Gender Equality Ratio (GER), which aims to determine who between women and men are faring better. A GER with value greater than 1 indicates that women have an advantage over men⁴.

So what do the GDI and GER tell us?

Gender inequality indeed exists!

While the country’s HDI was estimated at 0.6435 in 2003, GDI was estimated at 0.6087 indicating that there is gender inequality in overall achievements in health, education, and income (Table 1).

From 2000 to 2003, the difference between the HDI and the GDI has narrowed from 0.0659 to 0.0348 indicating that there are positive gains towards achieving gender equality (Table 1).

Adopting the UNDP HDI classification⁵, the 2000 as well as 2003 GDI for the Philippines is rated “medium.”

Health and income situation becoming more equal! But definitive deterioration in disparity in education between women and men!

Achievements in health and income are getting less unequal between women and men as GHI increased from 0.6842 to 0.7018 and GII increased from 0.2542 to 0.3254, from 2000 to 2003. However, achievements in education became more unequal as GEI decreased from 0.8310 to 0.7989. In general, gains in health and income were negated by the deterioration in education (Table 2). Calling on our Department of Education (DepEd) as this is only one of many statistics⁶ indicating deterioration in our education!

Inequality between women and men is more pronounced in income than in education and health.

Women outperformed men in all the three dimensions of development in both 2000 and 2003!

Women gained higher achievements than men in all three dimensions as indicated by the higher than one levels of GER for health (1.0248), education (1.0583) and income (1.2299) in 2003. In fact, the advantage of women in the income⁷ dimension grew bigger as the GER in income increased from 1.1170 to 1.2299 (Table 3). (Possibly one of the reasons why this year’s Women’s Month theme is “Babae, Yaman ka ng Bayan!”?)

However, women’s relative advantage over men in health and education has decreased from 2000 and 2003 as the GER decreased from 1.0329 to 1.0248 in health and from 1.0979 to 1.0583 in education (Table 3). (I guess this makes Pepe, Mario and Juan less financially dependent on their wives.)

Women attained higher development than men in most provinces in 2003!

70 of 79 provinces in 2003 show that women have an advantage over men in terms of development: whole of Luzon (except for Benguet and Masbate) and Visayas (except for Siquijor), and 19 in Mindanao (Figure 1).

Women in Zamboanga del Norte have the biggest advantage…

In 2003, women in Zamboanga del Norte enjoyed higher achievement than men than in any other province as the province had the highest GER at 2.1735 (Table 4).

Other provinces in the top five list where women have higher achievement in human development are in Biliran (2.0644), Surigao del Sur (1.8111), Apayao (1.7066) and Abra (1.6894).

But Maguindanao women have the biggest disadvantage!

Women were outperformed by men in achieving human development with the biggest margin in Maguindanao as the province posted the lowest GER of 0.0206 (Table 5).

Other provinces where the disparity in favor of men over women was highest are in Siquijor (0.0222), Basilan (0.3935), Sulu (0.8491) and Benguet (0.9202).

The GER can also be analyzed by dimension. This is helpful in identifying provinces where development programs in health, education, and income have been equitable for women and men, or where disparity occurs (Tables 6 and 7).

The biggest disparity in health was in Ilocos Sur in favor of women and in Tawi-tawi in favor of men!
In education, the biggest disparity was in Ifugao in favor of women and in Sulu in favor of men!
In terms of income, the biggest disparity was in Zamboanga del Norte in favor of women and in Basilan in favor of men!

Statistics show that women are gaining higher achievement than men in the three dimensions of human development in most of the provinces. This may perhaps be attributed to the successful implementation of various GAD programs, whether from the NCRFW, other national government agencies, or local government units.

Given all these gender statistics showing that men are being left behind, however, the question is – what do we now want? Do we want women to gain even bigger advantage over men in terms of human development? Or is it time for men to seek an honest-to-goodness gender equality? Perhaps, the time has come for Pepe and his kumpares to call for the empowerment of men or for a National Men’s Month?

Reactions and views are welcome thru email to the author at cj.astrologo@nscb.gov.ph

Posted 09 February 2009

____________________

¹Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and Chairman of the Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC). He holds a Ph. D. in Statistics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA and has taught mathematics and statistics at the University of the Philippines. He is also a past president of the Philippine Statistical Association.

² This article was written by Candido J. Astrologo, Jr. (cj.astrologo@nscb.gov.ph), OIC-Director of the National Statistical Information Center (NSIC) and Policies, Programs, and Standards Office (PPSO) (concurrent). The author thanks Dr. Lisa Grace S. Bersales, Jessamyn O. Encarnacion, Glenda P. Recto, and Simonette A. Nisperos for their assistance in the preparation of this article. The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSCB.

³ The HDI was conceptualized by the UNDP in 1990 to measure human development using the following dimensions: 1) Health - long and healthy life as measured by life expectancy at birth, 2) Education - knowledge as measured by a combination of adult literacy (two-thirds weight) and combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratios (one-third weight); and 3) Income - a decent standard of living, as measured by estimated earned income in PPP US$. In the Philippines, the HDI is measured by taking the average of 1) Health - life expectancy at birth, 2) Education - weighted average of functional literacy (2/3) and combined elementary and secondary net enrolment rate (1/3); and 3) Income - real per capita income.

⁴ NSCB Final Report on the Project “Development of a Methodology and Estimation of Gender Development Index (GDI) at the Local Level.

⁵ UNDP classification for HDI: High – HDI of 0.8 to 1.0; Medium – HDI of 0.5 to <0.8; Low – HDI of 0.0 to <0.5

⁶ Virola, Romulo A. Statistics on Philippine Education: Good News and Bad News. Statistically Speaking article. January 2007. http://www.nscb.gov.ph/headlines/StatsSpeak/2007/010807_rav_educ.asp

⁷ In the use and interpretation of these statistics, it is important to note that the methodology used for the computation of income component by sex still needs improvement, mainly due to data limitations faced by the Philippine Statistical System (PSS). Total income obtained from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) was weighted by the total number of employed persons by sex from the Labor Force Survey (LFS).

Table 1. GDI and HDI: Philippines, 2000 and 2003

Index	2000	2003	Difference
Gender Development Index (GDI)	0.5898	0.6087	0.0189
Human Development Index (HDI)	0.6557	0.6435	(0.0122)
Difference	0.0659	0.0348

Table 2. Gender Development Index by Component: Philippines, 2000 and 2003

Index	2000	2003	Difference
Gender Development Index	0.5898	0.6087	0.0189
Gender Health Index (GHI)	0.6842	0.7018	0.0176
Gender Education Index (GEI)	0.8310	0.7989	(0.0321)
Gender Income Index (GII)	0.2542	0.3254	0.0712

Table 3. Gender Equality Ratio, Philippines: 2000 and 2003

Dimension	2000	2003
GENDER EQUALITY RATIO	1.0820	1.1008
Health	1.0329	1.0248
Education	1.0979	1.0583
Income	1.1170	1.2299

Figure 1. Gender Equality Ratio by Province: 2003
(GER>1 – Women; GER<1 - Men)

Chart

Table 4. Top five provinces where women have the biggest advantage over men (GER>1)

Province	2000		2003		Change in Rank
Province	GER	RANK	GER	RANK	Change in Rank
Zamboanga del Norte	1.1276	30	2.1735	1	29
Biliran	0.0263	75	2.0644	2	73
Surigao del Sur	1.2316	20	1.8111	3	17
Apayao	1.6573	3	1.7066	4	(1)
Abra	1.1272	31	1.6894	5	26

Table 5. Top five provinces where men have the biggest advantage over women (GER<1)

Province	2000		2003		Change in Rank
Province	GER	RANK	GER	RANK	Change in Rank
Maguindanao	0.6352	4	0.0206	1	3
Siquijor	0.0214	2	0.0222	2	-
Basilan	0.0036	1	0.3935	3	(2)
Sulu	1.4793	70	0.8491	4	66
Benguet	0.9609	16	0.9202	5	11

Table 6. Top provinces by GER component
where women have the biggest advantage over men
(GER>1)

Component	2000		2003
Component	Province	Value	Province	Value
Health	Ilocos Sur	1.1155	Ilocos Sur	1.1006
Education	Lanao del Sur	1.2615	Ifugao	1.2180
Income	Eastern Samar	5.8672	Zamboanga del Norte	8.8128

Table 7. Top provinces by GER component
where men have the biggest advantage over women
(GER<1)

Component	2000		2003
Component	Province	Value	Province	Value
Health	Tawi-Tawi	0.8775	Tawi-Tawi	0.8834
Education	Tawi-Tawi	0.8997	Sulu	0.9501
Income	Maguindanao	0.2916	Basilan	0.0592


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