The Gender Index 2021

The Gender Index, an innovative and groundbreaking tool developed by WIPS—The Center for the Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute—provides broad-ranging evaluation of the inequality between men and women in Israel over time. The Index provides a detailed picture of the state of inequality in various areas of life—work, education, poverty, political and economic power, culture, violence, division of time, health, center-periphery relations, Arab society, Ultra-Orthodox society, and age 65+—and makes it possible to assign an overall score to gender inequality in Israel on the basis of the aggregate of the factors that determine the status of women in society.

The 2021 Gender Index includes a new domain that monitors gaps between women and men at the age of 65 or older, and new indicators in the family and fertility domain. All the indicators comprising the Gender Index are available for further use via the digital platform of She Knows—the largest gender-sensitive database in Israel.

This is the second year the Index includes a special spotlight that illuminates the social and economic implications of COVID-19 on women and men in Israel. Gender inequalities only intensified and deepened in the wake of the pandemic, as can be seen from the indicators included in the spotlight. COVID-19 could have a severe impact on gender equality achievements of recent decades in education, employment, the division of invisible work between women and men, and the fight against gender-based violence.

Unlike other gender indexes, which compare the situation in Israel with that in other countries on the basis of a very small number of indicators, the Gender Index is the first of its kind to examine gender inequality in a great variety of areas of life within the country itself. The Index makes it possible to monitor changes in each area and in each component, while providing a comprehensive picture of the state of gender inequality in Israel. This is the Gender Index’s unique contribution and consequently it can serve as a guide for the country’s policymakers and government and public bodies. The Gender Index also provides women’s organizations and other civil society groups with a platform for social activism toward changing gendered power relations and promoting gender justice in Israel.

The Gender Index in English can be downloaded in PDF form.