Gender Economic
Visibility Index
A composite framework for measuring women's economic visibility in Papua New Guinea
Measuring the gap between women's actual economic contribution and its recognition within formal economic systems — the structural blind spot in national accounts, labor data, and financial systems.
Overview
The Gender Economic Visibility Index (GEVI) is a new composite framework that measures the gap between women's actual economic contribution and its recognition within formal economic systems.
Unlike conventional gender indexes that focus on health, education, or political participation, GEVI targets the structural blind spot in national accounts, labor data, and financial systems.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is used as the pilot country: women make up nearly 49% of the population, dominate informal markets and subsistence agriculture, and contribute substantially to household economies — yet remain largely absent from formal economic measurement.
The study draws on the World Bank Gender Data Landscape 2026, the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) Index 2026, ILO ILOSTAT, UNDP HDR 2024, UN Women, Bank of PNG, DataReportal, and GSMA, with every figure backed by a verified, clickable source.
Headline result
PNG's composite GEVI score is 21.4 out of 100 — placing it in the "Critical Invisibility" category, one of the most severe gender economic visibility deficits documented globally, and consistent with PNG's rank of 151st of 166 countries on the UNDP Gender Inequality Index.
UNDP Gender Inequality Index
The central paradox: high activity, low visibility
Every dimension reveals the same pattern: women are economically active but economically invisible.
Labour: participation against formal wage employment
Markets: presence against secure employment status
Population: share of the country against share of Parliament
Over 60% of market vendors are women, yet PNG has no sex-disaggregated data on banking, savings, digital payments, internet use, or unpaid care work.
Recorded as zero in law
Legally, the WBL Index 2026 records a Parenthood score of 0/100 and a Childcare score of 0/100 — meaning working mothers have no maternity protection in law — alongside an Entrepreneurship score of just 25/100.
Key policy priorities
- Commission a national sex-disaggregated financial inclusion survey and set gender targets within the National Financial Inclusion Strategy.
- Enact paid maternity leave and childcare legislation, raising WBL Parenthood and Childcare scores from zero.
- Conduct PNG's first national time-use survey to value unpaid care and informal market work in national accounts.
- Introduce reserved parliamentary seats for women and expand rural digital and financial access programs.
- Adopt GEVI as an official monitoring tool within PNG's National Statistical Office, with annual reporting to Parliament.
Looking ahead — GEVI v2.0
The research also identifies two future GEVI v2.0 dimensions, both proposed as priority areas for future research and cross-cutting policy reform.
Safety visibility
45.3% of PNG women experience violence annually — over three times the global average.
Education visibility
Only 37.7% of girls complete lower secondary school, against an East Asia & Pacific average of 97.8%.
© 2025–2026 PNG GEVI Research — Pilot study prepared by Sujoy Maitra.