What are the underlying reasons of existing gender gaps such as women's lower educational attainment that we can observe in many countries around the world? One obvious answer might be that there are simply not enough schools specifically dedicated to the education of girls. In fact, development programmes and donor initiatives based on conventional measures of gender equality frequently try to improve women's access to education by investing in schools and related infrastructure.
While such investments are certainly important, they might miss to address the actual reasons that obstruct women's access to resources such as education. In many countries of the world, social norms lock women in traditional roles, for example activities as housewives, responsible for taking care of the children and preparing food. SIGI variables try to capture the social institutions that manifest such stereotypes, for example by measuring the percentage of girls who get married at very young ages, an indication of forced or arranged marriages.
