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Taiwan's gender inequality ranking improves
Courtesy of ICRT
The cabinet's Gender Equality Committee says a self-assessment shows that Taiwan ranks first in Asia and sixth worldwide in terms of gender equality.
According to the committee, its rankings are based on the Gender Inequality Index introduced by the United Nations Development Programme in 2010 and measures inequality between female and male achievement in three areas: reproductive health, empowerment, and the labour market.
The index ranges from 0, which indicates that men and women fare equally, to 1, which indicates that women fare as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions.
The cabinet committee says using the same ranking system, it has calculated Taiwan's 2019 Gender Inequality Index at 0.045, placing it sixth globally and first in Asia.
The report noted that the labour participation rate for women has improved, while the gender pay gap has shrunk.
In addition, it noted that gender-based violence, both physical and online, has gone down. However, Taiwan still struggles with traditional ideas about what areas of study are suitable for different genders.
Taiwan does have more female researchers than Japan and Korea but is still far behind countries like the UK or The Netherlands.
