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 – can provide 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, higher education, poverty, political and economic power, culture, violence, division of time, health, center-periphery relations, and Arab society – 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 2016 Gender Index contains many innovations: We have added a new dimension – culture and communication – in which gender inequality is manifested in representation in key cultural areas, such as pop music and theater, and in differential news coverage of men and women. New indicators have been added in other dimensions: In the time dimension, the indicators of lack of time for watching television and reading newspapers have been added. In the power dimension, the indicators of women’s representation in senior academic faculty and in the directorates of public and government companies have been added.

Unlike other gender indexes, which compare the situation in Israel with that in other countries on the basis of a very small number of variables, 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 examine directions of development 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 policy-makers and government and public bodies. The Gender Index also provides women’s organizations and other civil society groups with a platform for their activity toward changing gendered power relations and promoting gender justice in Israel.

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