On UNDP’s Revisions to the Gender-Related Development Index

In a recent article (Bardhan and Klasen, 1999) we had reviewed UNDP’s gender-related indices included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1995. In particular, we had suggested certain modifications to the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI), including a revision of the earned income component of the GDI. Partly based on our comments, UNDP modified the procedure for calculating the GDI in the 1999 Human Development Report (UNDP, 1999). Since the 1999 Report presents the new procedure in the technical annex without mentioning that it is different from previous years’ procedure, we want to briefly describe the changes made and their effects on the GDI ranking of countries.