Study on Gender and Disaggregated Data in the Arctic Region
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Issue Date
2025-05-12
Authors
Sustainable Development Working Group
Subject
Abstract
The Gender Equality in the Arctic has been ongoing since 2013 and in May 2021 completed its third phase whose main outcome was a Pan-Arctic Report on Gender Equality in the Arctic (GEA III), published in tandem with the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting.
For those engaged in Arctic social governance, the driving issue behind this report should come as no surprise: the general paucity of regionally comparable sex and gender disaggregated data. This is in part because it is not an issue that is unique to sex and gender disaggregated data. Going back to at least the early 1990s there has been a recognition of the lack of regionally comparable data. Such concerns have been echoed in the Sustainable Development Working Group’s Arctic Human Development Report I and II, as well as in the Arctic Social Indicators Report, published in 2004, 2015, and 2010, respectively. Lack of access to high-quality data makes us, as researchers and policymakers, blind to the issues facing the region’s inhabitants and the potentially unequal impact of these issues across gender identities. As a precursor to further mainstreaming efforts, it was suggested that the GEA project seek collaborations with relevant national statistical agencies, Indigenous and data experts, and that the GEA III report’s lead authors participate in a data challenges workshop to identify major obstacles and potential remedies for moving forward.