Gender-based Indicators in Human Development – Correcting for ‘Missing Women’

Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure are two gender-based
indicators provided by the United Nations Development Program. Population share of the
genders enter the formulation of these indicators in such a way that it favours the better
performing gender. This can lead to further additions to missing women. A correction is
proposed to capture this anomaly. This alternative satisfies an axiom of Monotonicity with its
two corollaries, that is, given attainments the measure maximizes at ideal sex ratio and
vanishes when one of the genders becomes extinct. An empirical illustration by taking life
expectancy data of countries is given.