Domestic Equality Index (DEI) (draft September 2025)

Domestic Equality Index (DEI) (draft September 2025) DEI working group

Abstract

This paper addresses persistent gender inequalities in the domestic sphere. We develop the Domestic Equality Index (DEI), which brings three key contributions to existing literature: it combines Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE)'s three-perimeter framework with the mental load; it measures the mental load in the form of both cognitive and emotional labor; and introduces a community-participatory methodology that engages organizations in co-constructing the index. Unlike existing top-down indices designed for cross-national comparison, the DEI serves as an advocacy tool for tracking improvement over time within organizations committed to gender equality. The DEI renders this social ill measurable, in order to allow organizations to actively engage in transformative political practices. Our case study with the Communist Refoundation Party of Sardinia demonstrates the index's practical application. By positioning the household as a negotiation arena and addressing power asymmetries, the DEI offers a path toward more equitable distribution of household responsibilities and recognition of women's labor.

Introduction

Gender inequalities persist across societies worldwide, despite advances in workplace participation and legal rights. While commonly measured through wage gaps or labor market participation, these approaches often neglect a critical domain where gender asymmetries remain deeply entrenched: the domestic sphere. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 5.4 recognizes this challenge, calling for the recognition and valuation of unpaid domestic and care work alongside the promotion of shared responsibilities within families. However, effective measurement tools and intervention strategies remain underdeveloped.

Traditional measurement approaches have focused primarily on time-use and physical task distribution, without mentioning the cognitive and emotional dimensions of domestic labor that disproportionately burden women. These invisible forms of planning, anticipating needs, decision-making, monitoring, emotion management, and more, represent persistent inequalities beyond physical domestic and care work. While existing frameworks such as European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)'s Gender Equality Index, INSEE's domestic work perimeters, and Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)'s asymmetry index have contributed valuable insights, they predominantly present top-down, expert-designed metrics that may fail to capture context-specific realities or engage communities in meaningful change.

Our study addresses three critical gaps in current approaches. First, existing indices often focus narrowly on quantitative measures without integrating the qualitative dimensions of physical, cognitive, and emotional labor. Second, current solutions are primarily top-down and market-based, limiting their transformative potential. Third, there is insufficient attention to the mental load associated with the daily activities within the household, an aspect that we view as crucial and want to render visible through our approach.

The Domestic Equality Index (DEI) makes three distinct contributions. Theoretically, it measures the mental load in the form of both cognitive and emotional labor, providing a more nuanced understanding of domestic and care work inequality. Methodologically, it develops a novel approach that combines INSEE's three-perimeter framework (narrow, intermediate, and expanded) with the mental load, creating a measurement tool that captures both visible and invisible forms of domestic and care work. Practically, it introduces a community-participatory implementation process and engages organizations in co-constructing the index, enhancing ownership, adaptation to different contexts, and a shift from a strictly top-down approach to research. This co-construction process represents a critical innovation, shifting from expert-imposed metrics toward participatory development that recognizes the importance of dialogue and negotiation with the research subjects.

By positioning the DEI as a tool for tracking improvement over time rather than cross-sectional comparison, it serves as an advocacy instrument for organizations committed to gender equality, helping align public discourse with internal practices.

The paper is structured as follows: section two reviews relevant literature; section three outlines the conceptual framework integrating the three perimeters with the mental load; section four introduces the methodology and presents the case study implementation; and section five discusses implications and conclusions.

Literature Review

This research relies on a social constructivist view of doing gender (Butler 1990, West & Zimmerman, 1987), whereby housework and carework are naturalized and seen as inherently "feminine" tasks (Federici, 1974). Gender social norms are a key reason why domestic inequalities within cis-gendered heterosexual couples persist across the globe, which is an empirically regular finding (Jaspers et al., 2022). Tied to this are the structural power asymmetries that are intrinsic to gender relations, which give men advantages over women, and associate "masculinity" with domination, and "femininity" with subordination (Connell, 1987). The asymmetrical valuation of gender has a myriad of implications, including the uneven distribution of domestic work between women and men. As argued by Federici (2004), the emergence of the capitalist system introduced profound transformations towards the degradation of women, who were forcefully relegated to the domestic sphere to reproduce the paid worker.

Various studies demonstrate that gendered housework and carework inequalities among household members persist across the globe (Bittman et al., 2003; Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard, 2010; Craig and Mullan, 2011; Kan et al., 2022, Wong and Daminger, 2024, Garcia-Roman and Ophir, 2024). While our research rests on these findings, it does not aim to bring further explanations as to why such inequalities persist. Instead, it develops an index to measure and improve this dire situation. The DEI is a tool to quantify how housework and carework are distributed among couples, designed to be co-constructed using a community-participatory approach with organizations (such as political parties, collectives, and social movements) who would like to take concrete action in rendering the domestic sphere more equal. Action Aid, the Institute of Development Studies, and Oxfam GB (2015) have created a training curriculum and community-participatory advocacy tool aimed at illiterate and semi-illiterate individuals to be applied to women-only groups in order to educate and empower them. The DEI takes a different approach, targeting organizations that have already politically positioned themselves within the fight for gender equality, and would like to apply their political thought to meaningful action. Our approach does not aim to solely empower, but rather to encourage negotiation between both partners, allowing the household to become a negotiation arena where current dynamics are deconstructed, new approaches are bargained and mutually agreed to.

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) developed an index that measures gender inequalities in allocation of time spent doing care and domestic work and social activities. The Gender Equality Index developed by EIGE gives an overall score for each EU member state in different areas (Violence, Work, Money, Knowledge, Health, Power and Time). Concerning time indicators and care activities, this index is measuring the percentage of women and men in charge of (1) caring for children/grandchildren; and (2) cooking or doing households. This indicator does not take into consideration the multiple aspects of housework related to physical, cognitive, and emotional labor and does not consider mental load. Additionally, DEI is meant to be co-constructed with the organization who wants to implement it internally to advocate for change.

The Italian Institute of Statistics also developed in 2008 an index but very few literature exists explaining its composition and methodological approach.

An important methodological difference brought by the DEI is the element of co-construction, whereby the list of housework and carework activities are devised with the collaborating organization, in order to ensure a bottom-up, culturally relevant, and adaptable approach. The goal is not to ensure spatial comparability between countries, as the indexes mentioned above do, but rather to provide a tool for tracking progress over time.

Beyond investigating why domestic gender inequality exists, existing literature also contributes to important policy analyses and proposals, following top-down market logic (Stier and Lewin-Epstein, 2007, Gonzàlez et al., 2022, Lütolf and Stadelmann-Steffen, 2022). The DEI proposes an approach that steps away from the market, and rather encourages an educational approach guided by various organizations. Additionally, the focus is on time-poverty, a social ill largely experienced by women. Women's total work hours, including paid work, housework and carework, exceed those of men, while also experiencing lower quality of leisure time compared to men (Jaspers et al., 2022). According to the European average, women work 11 hours a week more than men (Barigozzi et al., 2020). Moreover, women also tend to experience a lower quality of leisure than men (Henderson & Gibson 2013; Yerkes et al. 2020; Bittman & Wajcman 2000). The aim is therefore to encourage a more egalitarian division of time to housework and carework between partners, by raising awareness of the issue through the index, and consequently entering the negotiation arena of the home.

In this research housework and carework goes beyond physical labor, also including the mental load, which is defined as the combination of cognitive household labor and emotional work. Cognitive household labor involves anticipating, fulfilling, and monitoring household needs, an activity that falls disproportionately on women. Weeks (2022) finds that women are responsible for 70% of cognitive labor compared to men. Existing research has focused on the cognitive aspects of household labor, while not considering emotional work (Daminger, 2019; Robertson et al., 2019 as seen in Dean et. al., 2021), which however is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the mental load. We follow Dean et. al. (2021), who have expanded the theorization of mental load to include emotional work, alongside cognitive labor. The DEI therefore measures both cognitive and emotional aspects of the mental load.

Hochschild (1983) coined the concept of emotional work, which is defined as the effort to manage and shape emotions, and argues that women are responsible for this task within the family. This further contributes to the complex and often unrecognized burden of household labor predominantly shouldered by women. Cognitive household labor cannot be separated from emotional work, as most cognitive tasks related to the household require emotional work, as these tasks may a) be done out of care for loved ones, and b) may induce managed emotional responses to fulfill expected gender roles (for example, women are expected to be "naturally" loving and accommodating. Thus, a woman who is tired and frustrated due to inequitable distribution of household tasks may resort to deep acting to manage her emotions and fit into her expected gender roles). More generally, it is usually women who need to ensure that a family's emotional needs are met, which is a further form of emotional work (Bass, 2015; Wong, 2017, as seen in Dean et. al. 2021).

Conceptual Framework

The DEI combines various indicators into a single aggregated index. As such, two key aspects must be addressed: 1) the analytical framework explaining how the set of indicators represents domestic equality, and 2) the weighting of the indicators.

As illustrated in the literature review, housework and carework gender inequalities continue to persist across the globe. Since women are those who shoulder the majority of this work, our aim is to measure and address this unequal distribution of domestic labor by alleviating women's time poverty through incentivizing men's participation. The scope of this study is currently limited to cis-gendered, heteronormative, monogamous couples.

Existing approaches have focused on two ways to address this problem: the first one goes back to the Wages for Housework (WfH) campaign originated by the work of Dalla Costa and others at the beginning of the 70s. The second, more recent, is linked with the introduction of the time poverty concept by the UN, and tends to measure the time devoted by women and men to domestic life.

Our proposal differs from the monetary metrics (WfH, 2020), and can be seen as a variant of the second approach. Focusing on time poverty, we do consider time as a central concept. However, instead of measuring time spent on domestic labor, we focus on the various tasks that individuals engage in to keep the household running, analyzing which partner does what.

The four core building blocks of the conceptual framework:

The first element is time-sharing, meaning its repartition amongst adults' household members. Time is a highly political resource (Srishti, 2021), as it is entrenched in power dynamics: those in power determine how much time is to be allocated to whom, who controls it and how it is distributed. It is therefore vital for men to devote time to household chores rather than simply providing financial support, as it is instrumental in freeing up women's schedules. How women decide to use this newly acquired time is a personal matter and is not of the author's concern for this framework.

We have conceptualized an analytical framework to capture the gender disparity related to time in the domestic sphere by focusing on measuring various physical, cognitive, and emotional household labor activities. By creating a monitoring index focused on encouragement and advocacy that is easy to implement, our aim is to increase awareness of existing disparities, rather than relying on market-focused neoliberalist "solutions".

Since all the adults of the household are co-responsible for the domestic tasks, the second element of the proposal is the need to work with both men and women[^3].

A direct consequence of these two aspects and the declared objective (to free women's time through an increased men participation) is the third element that is the promotion of a negotiated approach. This implies considering the family/household as a negotiation arena where different partners defend their own vision and interests where dialogue and mutual trust should be strengthened as well as increase bargaining power of the weaker partner.

How to bring (and keep) men to the negotiation table and how to conduct/monitor it will be part of a subsequent article.

The fourth element emerges from the historical domination of patriarchy, particularly evident in the domestic sphere. This translates via asymmetry of power between partners, as a result of historical, cultural, political and economic domination. If this power asymmetry is not dealt with, in order to level the playground, no fair negotiation will be possible and no better time sharing will be reached.

Analytical Framework

The DEI builds on INSEE's framework as it appears to be the most flexible and unbiased conceptual framework. The use of perimeters, instead of other categorizations (e.g.: by activity), enables the automatic inclusion of cultural differences and economic availability. We do not have categories that may be more relevant in one context than in another. Instead, we measure activities based on their proximity to the family core and their level of essentiality for the smooth functioning of daily domestic life. INSEE structures its conceptual framework for domestic work around three perimeters:

A narrow perimeter that encompasses the "core" activities of domestic work, which are widely acknowledged and rarely disputed. These include washing dishes, doing laundry, ironing, shopping, cooking, and providing care both for children and dependent persons.

An intermediate perimeter which includes activities that individuals are more inclined to do for pleasure. This second list comprises semi-leisure activities such as sewing, DIY projects, gardening. For INSEE, shopping is also included in this second list because their survey does not distinguish between daily shopping and general shopping.

An expanded perimeter which also includes travel times, car trips, and walking the dog.

In addition to the INSEE's framework, we add an element that we consider fundamental, the mental load. This refers to aspects such as anticipating needs, identifying options for fulfilling them, making decisions, and monitoring progress (Weeks, 2022). The mental load must be considered in any endeavor to thoroughly quantify domestic labor. This is because housework and carework does not only entail tasks that must be done, but also those that must be thought about in advance, remembered (without needing to be reminded by the other person), planned, and monitored. While we refer readers to Weeks' (2022) works for further insights on this matter, it suffices to mention that we will integrate some aspects of this work into the perimeters adopted from INSEE's framework.

The relationship between the perimeters and the mental load can be explained as follows. The narrow perimeter covers essential, delegable core domestic tasks; the intermediate perimeter adds semi-leisure activities that blend necessity with enjoyment; and the expanded perimeter incorporates travel times and domestic animal care. The mental load is incorporated across these perimeters by measuring the cognitive and emotional aspects of anticipating needs, identifying solutions, decision-making, and monitoring progress. This integration creates a comprehensive measurement that captures both the physical tasks and the often-invisible mental burden of domestic management.

Each of these perimeters---narrow, intermediate, and expanded---as well as the cognitive household labor dimension will be operationalized through specific activity indicators that measure who performs these tasks within the household.

We propose a visualization of the conceptual framework below:

Methods and data

A clarification is needed before we proceed. When we refer to indicators throughout this paper, we are specifically addressing the distinct domestic activities that form the core measurement units of the DEI. Each indicator represents a concrete activity performed within the household (such as cooking meals, washing clothes, or helping children with homework) rather than abstract metrics or survey questions. These activity-based indicators measure and track who performs domestic activities within the couple. 

By focusing on these tangible, observable activities, the DEI provides a practical framework for assessing domestic labor distribution while avoiding overly technical or theoretical approaches that might be difficult to implement practically. The selection of which activities to include as indicators is deliberately designed to be co-constructed with participating organizations, ensuring cultural relevance and community ownership of the measurement process.

Several indicators will be collected for each perimeter pertaining to activities that occur in that context, as well as for the mental load. The final list of indicators will be subject to negotiation with the counterpart institution collaborating in the DEI implementation, in order to ensure relevance.

For instance, consider the task of doing laundry. It may seem simple and straightforward, but upon closer examination, it involves several steps starting with gathering and placing dirty clothes in a laundry basket, followed by transport to the washing machine, adding clothes, separating whites and colors to avoid bleach mishaps, and selecting the appropriate washing cycle. These sub-activities also involve remembering to buy detergent and fabric softener. Once the washing machine cycle is complete, who is responsible for hanging the clothes to dry? Then, who folds and subsequently irons them before finally placing them in their designated drawers or closets? All these activities may be obvious from a woman's perspective but not necessarily from a man's perspective. They all take time to do but also to think about (e.g., if I want to wear that specific shirt, have I taken care of the detergent-fabric softener-laundry basket-dirty laundry-washing machine-hanging-ironing-organizing in the drawer chain that is essential to have "that" shirt ready for use when I want it?) and, of course, the monitoring of the said progression in its entirety.

It is useful (and necessary) to note that the activities and questions to be examined will vary depending on the specificities of the counterpart institution. If the counterpart were a peasant movement, particularly perhaps in the Global South, activities such as fetching water, gathering firewood or forest products, honey collection, and much more should be taken into consideration. While adapting the questionnaire to local and socio-cultural specificities may sacrifice generic spatial compatibility, it is still a crucial step due to the co-constructive nature of the DEI. The full meaning of the process is realized through dialogue and negotiation, thus making it more suitable and acceptable in various situations.

Weighting the indicators

To assess how the performance of activities within a couple varies, there are three options:

a) Equal weighting: Under this approach, we assign identical importance to each activity indicator regardless of its complexity or duration. Each activity is treated as a single unit of domestic labor, with a value of 1 assigned to the partner who performs it. This creates a straightforward counting system where what matters is who performs each task, not how long it takes or what economic value it might have.

b) Time-based weighting: We measure the actual time required to complete each task, or

c) Monetary weighting: We calculate the market value of each task if it were outsourced.

Option a) is the simplest but neglects important differences between the indicators. While taking care of a child's emotional needs may demand a significant investment of time and energy, it does not have a direct monetary cost (although it entails an opportunity cost for the parent who opts to stay with the child instead of working or doing something else). A clear advantage is the removal of subjectivity from the partners' choices (when assigning different weights to different tasks, the interviewer introduces an external element of subjectivity). From an agreed-upon list, all tasks must be performed. The frequency considered necessary is the only variable, which becomes irrelevant when measuring task completion rather than time spent on it.

Option b) is ideal for taking into account how much time parents have left for other activities (leisure or work). This approach is adopted, for example, by ISTAT in their asymmetry index. However, it has the disadvantage of not taking into account the financial effort required to enable certain activities. If one parent can afford to spend time with their children, it is because the other earns enough to support the entire family. Alternatively, engaging in certain creative and recreational activities with children is only possible if the family has the financial resources to purchase these services.

The main problem with this approach is that it introduces an element of differentiation (e.g., I am faster than you because you do not know how to do it, or conversely, I take more time because I clean more thoroughly than you). In this way, adopting this approach does not lead to a "solution" but makes the problem unsolvable.

Option c) would certainly please the proponents of neoliberalism, where everything is measured in monetary terms, thus reviving the old debate on domestic wages. We have mentioned this option for the sake of transparency, but it is not consistent with the scope of this work. The fact that some tasks can be outsourced (e.g., care of the elderly in nursing homes) introduces an element of differentiation (of class, in Marxist terminology): those who have the money to pay, and those who do not have. However, the ultimate reason that compels us to eliminate this "solution" is that it risks freezing the existing asymmetrical social roles by institutionalizing the role of the housewife (Dalla Costa, 1972).

Based on the above, our choice is to consider all activities on the list equally. Consequently, we proceed to sum the activities without distinguishing between more or less valuable, tiring, or time-consuming activities. Too many subjective socio-cultural parameters could influence any financial or time-related parameters, thus introducing bias into the measurement of the DEI.

Throughout the data collection process, we acknowledge that many domestic activities are not exclusively performed by a single partner but are shared to varying degrees. This reality of partial task-sharing represents one of the most nuanced aspects of household labor distribution assessment. When partners self-report their contributions, their perceptions often differ - each potentially attributing more responsibility to themselves than their partner recognizes. To address these subjective differences in perception, we calculate the average of both partners' responses, which helps mitigate cognitive biases and provides a more balanced representation of the household's actual division of labor.

Based on this methodological approach, we measure task distribution across an indicative list of domestic activities. For each activity, we assign the following values:

● -1: Activity performed solely by partner A

● -0.5: Activity performed predominantly by partner A

● 0: Activity shared equally between partners A and B

● +0.5: Activity performed predominantly by partner B

● +1: Activity performed solely by partner B

As a result, the DEI will have three possible extremes:

DEI = 0 perfectly balanced couple

DEI = maximum negative value (a couple where all activities are performed solely by partner A)

DEI = maximum positive value (a couple where all activities are performed solely by partner B)

A Only         A Mostly A and B         B Mostly         B Only

                                                together

    -1                     -0.5             0                     +0.5             +1

It is important to remember that this index aims to observe the trend from one moment (T0) to the next (T1) and beyond (Tn). Therefore, it is not the absolute value per se that is important, but rather whether, during the observation period, the couple or the responsible organization, party, or movement has encouraged activities promoting greater domestic equality. In this sense, comparability between different groups is less critical than the movement of the indicator itself, making it a tool for political advocacy.

If some activities are delegated to third parties (domestic cleaners, babysitters, etc.), these are excluded from the final calculation (as explained further below).

Data

In our model, data plays a primary role. We envision this tool as the outcome of various rapid survey methods used in the development world. We also want to design it with the flexibility and agility for rapid data collection.

The questionnaires will be administered to both individuals in the couple/family. The questionnaires will be anonymous, limited to reporting gender, age group, education level, the number of children, and the monthly net income of the couple/family.

At the margin of the questionnaire, and to capture subjective choices, we include a question about subjective satisfaction with the current state of affairs. The purpose of this question is twofold: to understand the extent to which members of the couple feel that their aspirations and ideas are reflected in the current situation and to assess how this perception changes over time. It is conceivable that there are couples where an imbalanced situation in favor of one member is still considered satisfactory by that person. This may be due to cultural and social legacies. It would be interesting to assess changes in the medium to long-term following awareness and empowerment campaigns.

The responses obtained will depend on the respondent, i.e., they will presumably differ from partner A to partner B. Therefore, it will be necessary to compensate for possible cognitive and psychological distortions. One possibility is to assign the average value of the two responses to the family/couple.

The average of all the values found will allow us to establish an initial value at time T0. Periodic monitoring (biannual, annual) would then allow us to show the trend for the group, association, movement, or political party.

The use of the average is common practice in statistical inference. In the case of the DEI, because it requires subjective interpretations of each individual's use of time, the use of the average serves two purposes: to clean the data from the cognitive bias that each of us would introduce into the responses and to provide a sense of how aligned and aware the couples we are targeting are. In the first case, each of us is likely to attribute more domestic roles and tasks than our partner recognizes; it will also be interesting to understand how many of these self-attributions will overlap, i.e., are self-attributed to both partners. The other aspect has to do with how much individuals deviate from the average value, i.e., how much aligned the partners agree in recognizing each other's roles.

The process of data collection is crucial for any indicator, whether it is economic, social, or environmental. Often, this process has typically focused on data provided by statistical institutes, with technical support provided, usually from Northern countries, to ensure that the data collected is suitable for international comparisons. The top-down nature of these indicators, designed by experts and imposed on vastly different local realities, appears relatively uncontested, except for isolated cases like Bhutan, which prefers a Gross National Happiness indicator over GDP per capita.

The case study we present is limited in both its nature and magnitude. The Communist Refoundation Party of Sardinia was the first institution to show interest in discussing domestic sphere issues and testing the DEI. Through contacts established via collaboration with senior management of the party, we proposed initiating reflection on this topic leading to the first test. A series of preliminary meetings, gradually expanded to include members and supporters who would participate in the test, allowed for presenting the index, its co-constructive nature, and an initial questionnaire proposal. Several weeks were allocated for more comprehensive internal discussion, resulting in agreement on the final questionnaire version and sample selection (cis-gendered, heterosexual, monogamous couples in this case). Adjustments were necessary, particularly regarding data collection methods, ultimately employing a mixed system of paper questionnaires and/or telephone interviews conducted by the DEI group.

The final dataset consisted of 47 observations (i.e. respondents) that, as said, represent a sample limited in nature and magnitude. However, it holds the promise of showing an initial phase of implementation.

During the data collection, we experienced refuses to respond; reciprocal partners' influence on the responses; need for greater understanding of the questions and rationale. We took note of all those difficulties, dropped the responses that were potentially biased, and transferred all the lessons learned to the relevant senior management.

Results and Discussion

Several hypotheses can be made to inform the research questions about domestic inequality within couples. Here are some examples that guide our investigation:

First, we can hypothesize that queer couples experience lower inequality than cis-gendered, heterosexual, monogamous couples, potentially due to reduced gender stereotype influence and typically fewer children (related to procreation/adoption barriers in certain countries).

Second, we expect that couples with multiple children show increased domestic inequality. This aligns with INSEE data from France demonstrating that women's part-time employment increases with more children, while men's decreases---suggesting a correlation between part-time work choices and domestic/childcare responsibilities.

Third, we hypothesize that wealthier families outsource more domestic activities (cleaning, cooking, childcare). This outsourcing affects not only gender inequalities but also perpetuates "race" and social class disparities, as these tasks typically fall to vulnerable immigrant women. To test this, income brackets will be incorporated into the questionnaire, along with specific questions about outsourcing arrangements.

Fourth, we examine potential asymmetry in labor market participation within households (one full-time worker, one domestic worker). Single-income families often experience such imbalances, frequently leading to relationship tensions.

Fifth, we investigate how couple life cycles influence domestic balance, considering both relationship duration and age of individuals. We aim to determine whether younger couples show greater sensitivity to equality issues, potentially informing targeted interventions.

The data collected for the Sardinia case study, clearly indicates a very high sharing of tasks between the two sexes when looking at all perimeters combined, probably beyond what we as observers might have expected. When disaggregating the data by perimeter, the greater role of women in the restricted perimeter, which groups activities most defining domestic life, is confirmed by both parties. Regarding the other two perimeters, intermediate and extended, which could be considered as partially peripheral to couple life, the greater male involvement is confirmed by both parties.

It therefore suggests that the historical sensitivity on these issues demonstrated by the two-party leaders as well as by the members and/or supporters themselves has contributed to creating a solid foundation of equality within the party dynamics that this initial test records.

Conclusions

The main purpose of the DEI is to serve as an advocacy tool for greater gender equality, starting from a better balance within household responsibility sharing and through continuous monitoring.

This index is designed for a specific audience, namely those groups, associations, movements, and/or political parties that take public positions in favour of gender equality. The DEI will allow them to demonstrate the consistency between their political pledge and concrete actions implemented within their organizations to encourage participants (or sympathizers) in these groups to initiate (or continue and accelerate) a path of change towards gender equality.

The DEI should be measured several times over time to see how (if!) the balance changes over time.

DEI is conceived as a tool to stimulate and promote processes that lead to gender equality, a mission that should be of interest to all movements, associations, parties, or other entities that publicly pledge to uphold gender equality and gender-responsive policies. The absence of references to the domestic sphere means that all these public commitments are considered applicable only to the public sphere, a crucial but less structural aspect of power dynamics in the private sphere.

Patriarchal power relations are evident in the private sphere where they create the material foundation for the reproduction of the overarching capitalist economy in a subtle and structural manner. In the domestic sphere, labor is reproduced freely alongside the relations of male dominance over women, which parallel the domination of men over nature.

One potential risk to avoid is failing to consider the power imbalances that may exist within the dominant groups of organizations, movements, and parties with whom we plan to collaborate. The reality is that leadership roles in these institutions are often male-dominated, indicating the influence of patriarchy on our cultural formation and shaping of institutions. If this dimension of patriarchal power is not addressed, there may be a risk of exercise manipulation. We highlight the importance of the negotiating aspect as all stakeholders, both male and female, must have the chance to voice their opinions during the decision-making process.

Therefore, delegating the final choice of activities to be measured solely to the counterpart's leadership will not suffice. It is crucial to have accompanying facilitators who are aware of the potential risk involved. This does not imply that the executive boards of various associations, movements, parties, etc., are inherently sexist; rather it highlights the existence of a that must be minimized. The preliminary discussion before the negotiation phase is crucial and requires adequate time allocation. The higher the level of coordination in the negotiated list, the greater the likelihood of achieving an accurate representation of the situation. This is a crucial starting point for progressing toward improvement.

We strongly believe that a change in the domestic sphere (or social reproduction) is central to building a different and better world. In a society that has given a key role to indices, it seems that accompanying grassroots lobbying efforts that involve men and women in achieving real time sharing within the domestic sphere, so that men take on their share of responsibility and free up women's time for various other uses, is an interesting proposal for discussion.

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