Measuring Gender Equality : A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Some EU Countries

In this open access book, the editors explicitly address the issue of measuring gender equality. The book introduces readers to basic concepts of gender equality, equity and equal opportunities, then discusses measuring these phenomena, the methods of constructing indicators, and reviews the main indicators that have been proposed at the international level to measure gender equality. It then sets the theoretical discussions against the findings from a Jean Monnet project financed by the European Union to highlight the importance of a regional analysis of gender equality in four main study areas: Italy, Spain, France and Germany. The results make it clear that it is necessary to move from the purely national perspective hitherto used in gender equality analyses to a regional one because differences can be highly pronounced even within the same country. This is a self-contained volume requiring limited statistical expertise for the reader and is aimed at social researchers and policymakers who wish to address gender equality from a quantitative perspective.

Enrico di Bella is Associate Professor of Social Statistics at the University of Genoa, Italy. He received his M.Sc. degree in economics from the University of Genoa in 2002 and his Ph.D. degree in Statistics Applied to Economic and Social Sciences from the University of Padua in 2006. His scientific and research interests are focused on the application of statistical methods in the social sciences along the whole process of knowledge construction and understanding of social phenomena. Among the application areas in which these interests have been developed, a pivotal role is covered by the measurement of gender equality, a topic on which he won as Academic Coordinator the Jean Monnet Erasmus+ which led to the production of this volume. He is the author of numerous scientific publications and conference presentations. He is co-editor of the journal Social Indicators Research (Springer) and a section editor of the Encyclopaedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (Springer).
Sandra Fachelli is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville. She has a postdoctorate in social science from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), PhD in sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and has a Diploma of Advanced Studies in sociology, Master in Introduction to Research in Sociology (UAB), and Master’s in Design and Management of Policies and Social Programs (FLACSO Argentina). She has a BA degree in sociology from the University of Argentina John F. Kennedy. She is a teaching coordinator and professor of the Master’s Programme in Applied Social Research Techniques (TISA) that are co-coordinated by UAB and UB. She was member of the Academic Commission and task manager of the INCASI Project. She is President of the Research Committee 06 “Inequality and Social Stratification” of the Spanish Federation of Sociology (FES). Her main areas of research are inequality, stratificationand social mobility, higher education, and employment.
Pedro López-Roldán is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology (UAB). He has a degree in economics and business studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB); an advanced degree in Mathématiques, Informatique et Applications aux Sciences de l'Homme (option Statistique et Modélisation dans les Sciences Sociales) from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris; and a Ph.D. in Sociology, from the Department of Sociology, UAB. He is a researcher at the Sociological Research Center on Everyday Life and Work (QUIT), Institute for Labour Studies (IET), UAB; and Coordinator of the Master in Applied Social Research Methods (TISA). He is also president of the research committee 41 on comparative sociology between Europe and Latin America at the Spanish Federation of Sociology. His main lines of research are: (1) social research methods: multivariate data analysis, typological construction, and mixed methods, and (2) sociology of labour and social inequalities: labour market segmentation, gender and immigration; labour trajectories; stratification and social mobility; and comparative sociology between Europe and Latin America.
Christian Suter is Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After receiving his PhD in sociology from the University of Zurich, he was visiting scholar at the Colegio de México, visiting professor at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, and assistant professor of sociology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. He is currently doing research on social and economic inequalities, social indicators and quality of life, as well as on globalization and world society. He has published and edited more than 30 books and special issues, as well as many articles in international social sciences journals, encyclopedias, and volumes. His most recent publications include Wealth(s) and Subjective Well-being (Springer, 2019); The Middle Class in World Society (Routledge, 2020); Measuring and Understanding Complex Phenomena (Springer, 2021); and The Future of Work (Seismo, 2021). He won the Book Award of the American Sociological Association, Political Economy of the World-System Section (1993), and was also awarded the Fritz Thyssen Prize for articles in social science journals (1998), and the Research Fellow Award 2020 of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies for substantial contribution to quality-of-life research (2020).