Gender Inequality and Growth: The Case of Rich vs. Poor Countries

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Does gender discrimination in social institutions matter for long-term growth?

“…What is also remarkable is that gender-based discrimination reduces countries' income levels beyond the negative effect of gender inequality in outcomes. While previous empirical papers highlighted the negative relationship between growth and gender inequality in education and labour force participation or broader measures of gender disparities in outcomes, such as the GII (Amin, Kuntchev and Schmidt, 2015), our empirical results emphasise the key role of discriminatory social institutions. The fact that the SIGI coefficient remains significant when controlling for other types of gender inequality that are highly correlated with the SIGI suggests that what we measure is the net effect of gender discrimination in social institutions filtered from the effect of gender inequality in outcomes.…”

“…This section further points to the heterogeneity in the growth-SIGI relationship. Following Amin, Kuntchev and Schmidt (2015), this paper assumes that the strength of the relationship between gender-based discrimination in social institutions and income may vary with the level of economic development. This paper presumes that in low-income countries, gender-based discrimination in social institutions represents an additional growth bottleneck.…”

“…In the OECD area, it is estimated that income would increase by 12% if the female participation rates would reach male levels in 2030 (OECD, 2012). Some more recent studies have attempted to use broader measures of gender inequality in outcomes and find that gender disparities not only in education but also in other areas such as health, employment and political participation have an adverse effect on economic growth (Amin, Kuntchev and Schmidt, 2015;Ferrant, 2015).…”

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia: Selected Issues

“…19 We estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in the female-male LFP ratio is associated with a 0.2 percentage point increase in the rate of growth, at lower levels of female participation ( figure 3). Previous work finds similar estimates (IMF, 2015;Amin et. al., 2015).…”

Gender Equality and Economic Diversification

“…2 Berge and Wood (1994) provide support for the hypothesis that an educated female labor force is a determinant of manufacturing exports growth. Using broader measures of gender inequality going beyond education gaps, a recent study by Amin et al (2015) confirms their strong negative impact on economic growth but only in poor countries.…”