Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


Mainstreaming

    Mainstreaming of women's development entails addressing gender issues in all development projects and programme, irrespective of sector of type of project. Mainstreaming is therefore the very opposite of a strategy of segregating gender issues into separate "women's projects".

    The terms "mainstreaming" is currently used in two rather different ways, depending on the user's perspective in women's development. For those who interpret women's development as being merely concerned with improving women's access to resources and productivity, the strategy of mainstreaming may be interpreted in the minimum or weaker sense of integrating gender issues by adding gender objectives to existing programmes. This involves some adaptation, but nor transformation of the development process.

    By contrast, a stronger sense of the term mainstreaming is used by those who see women's development as being essentially concerned with women's participation and empowerment, to address issues of gender inequality. From this perspective, the mainstreaming of gender issues entails the transformation of the development process. UNICEF has an explicit policy on mainstreaming which embraces this stronger meaning of mainstreaming.

Mean age at first marriage

    The mean age at first marriage is the weighted average of the age specific rates of first marriage.

Marital status

    Marital status refers to the (legal) conjugal status of each individual in relation to the marriage laws or customs of the country (de jure status). For this classification all persons living in consensual unions should be classified as single, married, widowed or divorced in accordance with their de jure status. However, in order to better reflect changing lifestyles, for countries that record data on cohabiting couples, this data is added.

Mean age of women at first birth

    The mean age of women at first birth is the weighted average of the age specific rates of first order births.

Mid-year population

    Estimate of the total number of persons present in the country (de facto population) on 1 July of the year indicated.

Main economic sectors

    Using the International Standard Classification (ISIC Rev.2 1968 or Rev.3 1990) the economy is divided into three branches: 1) agriculture, 2) industry, and 3) services.

    From ISIC Rev.2 the following are grouped together:

    • Agriculture = Major group 1
    • Industry = Major groups 2-5
    • Services = Major groups 6-9, 0

    From ISIC Rev.3:

    • Agriculture = Categories A and B
    • Industry = Categories C to F
    • Services = Categories G to Q

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