TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Efforts to visualize gender inequalities at the local level have been under way in countries like Britain and Japan to help municipalities customize policies that otherwise might be difficult to formulate only using country-based indexes.

In May, researchers unveiled findings from what they call Britain's first index to measure, map and analyze the socioeconomic outcomes of women and men across local authorities, touting the metrics as capturing "the nuanced realities of gender disparities" in areas including leadership participation.

The Gender Equality Index UK, or GEIUK, consists of 19 indicators in six domains -- paid work, unpaid work, money, power and participation, education and health. It covered 372 local authorities by combining existing data from 2021 to 2023.

While no local authority in Britain has achieved full gender equality, the team at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London, which developed the index, was hopeful for the role the indicator will play.

Speaking at an online seminar in September, Caitlin Schmid, a research fellow at the institute, said the index and interactive maps support the formulation of evidence-based policy.

"We see the policy relevance lying in providing localized data broken down by nation and local authority to tailor policies to local realities," she said.

According to Schmid, the findings showed a correlation between gender equality and the levels of full-time employment or wages.

Disparities were deep in the unpaid work domain, which includes domestic work and child-rearing, as well as in the power and participation domain, which measures company leadership and participation in civil society and other factors.

Greater involvement by men in unpaid work is not only tied to gender equality but is also positively associated with higher socioeconomic outcomes for men, according to the index.

In Japan, a group of researchers called "Achieving Gender Equality From Localities Up!" has calculated the gender gap index for all prefectures in the country using around 30 indicators in four domains -- politics, public policy, economics and education -- since 2022.

Mari Miura, a professor at Sophia University's Faculty of Law who heads the group, has said she wanted to "highlight the differences in speed" among municipalities in addressing the gender issue based on the past years of data.

"It is not always improving. There are sometimes setbacks," she said at the September seminar that brought together gender researchers from other countries, citing the rate of childcare leave among local government workers as an example.

Miura also said the prefectural gender gap index sends "a clear message" to rural areas, which are especially in need of a gender equality policy in a rapidly graying country where many young women move to urban areas.

At the national scale, Britain ranked fourth in the 2025 Global Gender Gap Index released by the World Economic Forum, the highest among the Group of Seven industrialized nations. Japan ranked 118th, the lowest among the G7 members.

Schmid, however, said a nation-level index cannot fully grasp the gender inequalities in regions.

The GEIUK website "will definitely be a very helpful resource for local and national government also, because we are bridging that link to regional development, which, of course has national significance," she said.