Gender Equality Measurement, Collective Agency, and Trade Unions: A Way Forward

This chapter provides an extensive but not exhaustive overview of gender equality indices. Two key concerns emerge: frst, the conflation of measures of gender equality and assessments of women’s rights and status; and second, the focus on individual empowerment used in almost all international indices, the indicator for which is frequently political representation.The chapter proposes an alternative frame of collective agency as a measurable dimension that shifts attention from those institutions that reproduce gender inequality to those that promote gender equality. The second part of this chapter argues that trade unions are a key institutional vehicle for women’s collective agency and voice. Union membership increases women’s income and reduces the gender pay gap, a central dimension in all gender equality indices. It also improves the quality and conditions of working life. Union membership, then, helps progress women’s status, supports gender equality, and offers a valuable measure of women’s collective agency. --Introduction