2.1.3. Gender Inequality

Gender inequality was measured using the subnational gender development index (SGDI) [20,21]. The SGDI is the only readily publicly available metric of gender inequality available at the subnational level which is comparable across geographies and time.

SGDI captures gender inequalities in achievement in the three dimensions of development captured by the SHDI (items detailed above). The SGDI is the ratio of SHDI among men to SHDI among women within a subnational region; additional detail regarding the SGDI is published elsewhere [20]. We include both SGDI (the ratio of development between women and men) as well as the SHDI (the overall level of development) in adjusted models.

SGDI values below 1 indicate higher human development among men than women, a value equal to 1 indicates equality, and values above 1 indicate higher development among women than men. We created a binary analysis variable for SGDI based on quintiles of its sample distribution, dichotomized to higher gender inequality favoring men (highest quintile) versus lower gender inequality (quintiles 2–5). In analyses limited to the most recent year of data, we recreated the binary variable based on quintiles of the most recent year

sample distribution. We present summary statistics for the continuous SGDI measure, but analyzed SGDI as a binary measure (higher versus lower gender inequality) in regression analyses for ease of interpretation.
