The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program. The aim of these measurements was to add a gender-sensitive dimension to the Human Development Index (HDI). The first measurement that they created as a result was the Gender-related Development Index (GDI). The GDI is defined as a “distribution-sensitive measure that accounts for the human development impact of existing gender gaps in the three components of the HDI” (Klasen 243). Distribution sensitive means that the GDI takes in to account not only the average or general level of well-being and wealth within a given country, but focuses also on how this wealth and well-being is distributed between different groups within society. The HDI and the GDI (as well as the GEM) were created to rival the more traditional general income-based measures of development such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP).
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