Gender-Specific Call of Duty: A Note on the Neglect of Conscription in Gender Equality Indexes

We document that existing gender equality indexes do not take into account gender-specific mandatory peace-time conscriptions. This suggests that gender-specific conscription is not considered to be an important gender issue. If an indicator measuring the gender equality of mandatory conscription (compulsory military service) would be included into gender equality indexes with appropriate weight then the relative positions of countries could be affected. In the context of Nordic countries, this would mean that Finland and Denmark, the countries with conscription for male only, would get worse scores with respect to gender equality compared to Sweden and Norway, countries with conscription or men and women, and Iceland, a country with no conscription for men nor women.