Kazakhstan ahead of U.S. and Ukraine in Gender Equity Index

Kazakhstan is ranked 33rd in the Gender Equity Index 2012, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the website of Social Watch. The rating is led by Norway (0.89). It is followed by Finland (0.88), Iceland (0.87), Sweden (0.87) and Denmark (0.84). Top ten countries also include New Zealand (0.82), Spain (0.81), Mongolia (0.81), Canada (0.80) and Germany (0.80). Russia is 2 lines ahead of Kazakhstan and is ranked 31st. The U.S. are ranked 50th and Ukraine holds the 64th line. Afghanistan has the lowest index (0.15). The Gender Equity Index (GEI) measures the gap between women and men in education, economic activity and political empowerment. Social Watch computes a value for the gender gap in each of the three areas in a scale from 0 (when for example no women is educated at all and all men are) to 100 (perfect equality).