The Many Dimensions of Gender Equality and Their Impact on Economic Growth

Abstract

This study explores the multidimensional nature of gender equality and its influence on economic growth across 64 countries from 2000–2011 using an endogenous growth model. After controlling for standard growth correlates, the empirical results show that countries that protect the economic rights of women experience higher real GDP per capita growth rates. Furthermore, after controlling for a country’s religious affiliation, the importance of religion to the lives of people living in a country had a negative influence on economic growth. Intensely held religious beliefs are strongly correlated with gender inequitable views. These attitudes might serve as an important channel through which these gender biases are institutionalized in economic practices and act to slow economic growth.

Keywords:

• gender
• religion
• education
• labor markets
• economic growth

JEL Codes:

• I24 Education and Inequality
• O11 Macroeconomic Analysis of Economic Development
• O57 Comparative Studies of Countries
• Z12 Religion

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Gene Sprechini, three anonymous reviewers, and the editor of this journal for insightful comments. Valuable research assistance was provided by Meghan Hughes and Julianne Kiess.

Notes

¹ It should be noted that associating economic growth with progress has its limitations. Feminist economists have used standpoint theory to critique mainstream development economics and its emphasis on economic growth (Benería, Berik, & Floro, 2016; Kabeer, 1994). For instance, Marilyn Waring (1988) and others have argued that relying on seemingly neutral criteria such as GDP to capture economic growth ignores any household, subsistence, or reproductive activities that are usually performed by women. Although conventional measures of economic growth are not a perfect measure of a society’s well-being, they do have the advantage of being consistently reported and available for a diverse set of countries.

² Some scholars have argued that gender equality can only be achieved through political means (Cooray & Potrafke, 2011; United Nations Development Program, 1995). The empirical evidence is mixed. There is some evidence linking democracy and gender equality in education (Brown, 2004; World Bank, 1991, p. 50) though other studies find no relationship between democracy and educational outcomes for girls (Cooray & Potrafke, 2011). The current analysis considered variables that measured the level of democratic practices in each country as well as a variable that classified countries based on their political protections for women. After controlling for educational, economic, and religious features of a country, these political variables had no impact on a country’s economic growth and thus these variables are not included in the empirical analysis that follows.

³ Because gender-aggregated measures of human capital are often strongly correlated with measures of gender equality, I follow Klasen and Lamanna (2009) and use only male enrollment in tertiary education as my measure of human capital. I do consider other human capital variables and discuss these results below.

⁴ The World Values Survey has been carried out in a series of waves – this study uses the responses from the most recent wave (2010–2014) whenever possible. However, to increase the number of countries in my sample, I also included the responses from countries in the 2005–2009 and 1999–2004 waves if they were not included in the 2010–2014 wave. The importance of religion to the lives of people in a particular country in reality can change over time. However, because the World Values Survey only surveys a small sample of countries in each of its survey waves, I only have one observation on this variable for each country over this time period. So though the importance of religion can (and probably does) change over time, for the purposes of this study, it is a time-invariant variable.

⁵ These include the labor force participation gap, the representation of women in parliament, the literacy rate gap, the secondary enrollment gap, and the inverse of fertility.

⁶ A complete listing of the Pearson correlation coefficients and VIFs are available from the author by request.