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More than 1000 women from all over the world are currently gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New  York to participate in the annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). In the midst of the two-week consultations, debat es and exchanges, on March 8th, lies International Women's Day, the yearly event celebrating women’s achievement in economic, political and social life.

A strong relationship can  be found between social institutions and literacy ratios. As illustrated in the figure,  countries in which the SIGI scores are low show a ratio of female to male literacy of close to 1.

The ratio is significantly lower in countries where discrimination is high.

The indicator on early marriage seems to have a particularly strong effect on this relationship. Marriage at a young age limits women’s access to education. Several studies find that gender differences in education have a negative impact on a country’s economic growth potential.

Women’s participation in non-agricultural wage employment has been indentified as one of the key indicators for the Millennium Development Goal of "promoting gender equality and empower women" (MDG 3). Looking at the SIGI, we find a strong relationship between our index and this indicator.