The social institutions variables that provide the basis for the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) were established through a qualitative and quantitative assessment of 124 countries. Specifically, for each of the 124 countries included in the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, a detailed country note analyses the situation of women and men in the area of social institutions.
Each note applies the same guidelines and coding principles to guarantee comparability across countries. In general, country notes start out with an overview of the legal situation in the areas of family code, physical integrity, son preference, civil liberties and ownership rights, drawing on the Constitution and other legal documents as a reference. They then assesss the extent to which these legal provisions are applied within the actual country context and whether other obstacles prevent women from enjoying a certain legal right (for example, women's limited access to land frequently prevents them from exercising their legal right to obtain credit, as they cannot provide the required collateral).
Finally, each of the 12 social institutions indicators is coded on a scale from 0 (meaning no or very low inequality) and 1 (meaning very high inequality), considering the extent of discrimination within each area and the share of the population that is affected by this discrimination (e.g. some restrictions may only apply to certain subsections of the population, in which case the country score is adjusted accordingly). For more information, please consult the SIGI Coding Principles.
