scholarly journals Economic Development and Gender Equality: Is There a Gender Kuznets Curve?

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Eastin ◽  
Aseem Prakash

This research note examines the relationship between economic development and gender equality. Drawing on the concept of the Kuznets curve, the authors hypothesize that the relationship between economic development and gender inequality is curvilinear (S shaped), with three distinct stages. In the first stage, economic development improves gender equality because it enables greater female labor-force participation. An independent income stream increases women's intrahousehold bargaining power. The opportunity to develop human capital confers greater political and social recognition. In the second stage, labor-force stratification and gender discrimination encourage divergent male/female income trajectories, which decrease the opportunity costs of female labor-force withdrawal and lend traction to social resistance against burgeoning gender norms. Consequently, there is a deceleration in initial equality gains. In the final stage, gender equality again improves, as greater educational participation and technological advancement provide new employment opportunities for women, increase the opportunity costs of staying home, and encourage the evolution of new social institutions and norms that overcome prior discriminatory practices. The authors find support for this argument in statistical tests of the relationship between economic development and gender equality on a panel of 146 developing countries for the period 1980–2005. They employ four indicators that reflect distinct dimensions of women's political, social, and economic status. They find economic development positively influences gender equality when per capita incomes are below $8,000–$10,000. These equality gains level off or decline slightly in the second stage, from $8,000–10,000 to about $25,000–$30,000. Beyond this level, economic development is again associated with improvements in gender equality. The key implication is that the effect of economic development on gender equality is contingent on the level of development. Policymakers and social activists should develop policy correctives to ensure that economic development confers improvements in gender equality across phases of development.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Fruttero ◽  
Daniel Gurara ◽  
Lisa Kolovich ◽  
Vivian Malta ◽  
Marina Mendes Tavares ◽  
...  

Despite the increase in female labor force participation over the past three decades, women still do not have the same opportunities as men to participate in economic activities in most countries. The average female labor force participation rate across countries is still 20 percentage points lower than the male rate, and gender gaps in wages and access to education persist. As shown by earlier work, including by the IMF, greater gender equality boosts economic growth and leads to better development and social outcomes. Gender equality is also one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that 193 countries committed to achieve by 2030.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-28
Author(s):  
Nezahat Doğan

This study uses a cross sectional data for 115 countries in order to examine the relationship between global peace and gender equality, by using Global Peace Index (GPI) as a dependent variable, and Gender Inequality Index (GII) and Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) as independent variables. We test whether the gender equality is related to peace and whether the impacts differ when other determinants of peace have taken into consideration. The results suggest that level of gender equality and cohesion are the most robust and significant variables affecting level of peace in a positive way among other control variables. Two indexes have been used as a measure of gender equality in order to check the robustness of the results and the same results and conclusions were obtained from the regressions. Interestingly, the study also finds that income level of the country, as a control variable, is insignificant in all regressions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Anniina Kaittila

Although various studies indicate that money is a major source of conflict between cohabiting and marital partners, the existing research on what causes conflict within intimate relationships remains insufficient. Using data from the European Social Survey 2004/2005, this article explores the factors that predict monetary conflict between partners across 23 European countries. Previous research concerning financial conflicts has concentrated on individuallevel factors. This study adds a macro-level perspective to the existing body of research by exploring whether the rate of female labor force participation and societal gender equality are associated with the prevalence of conflict. Individual-level factors, such as personal characteristics, household controls, relative resources, and gender equality, explain the frequency of disagreements. At the macro-level, this study shows that relationship dynamics are affected by the institutional characteristics of countries. In particular, in countries where the rate of female labor force participation is high, conflicts over money are more common. However, societal gender equality does not explain the frequency of conflicts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3956
Author(s):  
Christina Ergas ◽  
Patrick Trent Greiner ◽  
Julius Alexander McGee ◽  
Matthew Thomas Clement

The carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) (a ratio measuring the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of life expectancy at birth) is an increasingly popular way to measure the ecological efficiency of nations. Although research demonstrates that economic development typically reduces this efficiency, little research has explored the extent to which social equality improves it. This study uses panel data for 70 nations between 1995 and 2013 to assess how various aspects of gender equality affect the ecological efficiency of nations. We estimate a series of Prais-Winsten regression models with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to assess how increases in the percentage of women in parliament, expected years of education for women, and the percentage of women in the labor force independently affect CIWB. Our findings indicate that across all nations, increases in the percentage of women in parliament and expected years of schooling reduce CIWB; however, increases in the percentage of women in the labor force increase CIWB. Our results further show that the relationship between different dimensions of gender equality and CIWB differs between more developed and less developed nations. Finally, we find that increases in the number of women in parliament and women’s education attenuate the relationship between women’s labor force participation and CIWB. We discuss the variation in our results by reviewing relevant eco-gender literatures and feminist economics.


Author(s):  
Junran Ma

With the development of economy, environmental problems gradually outstanding in China. This article adopts the method of empirical study, have collected the data of China's industrial added value, per capita GDP and emissions of the three major pollutants from 2004 to 2015. The VAR model was established on the basis of the logarithm values of the three factors mentioned above, so as to conduct impulse- response analysis to discuss the relationship between industrialization level, economic development and environmental pollution. The conclusion is as follows: (1) At present, the increase of China's industrial added value can promote the decline of China's environmental pollution emissions to a certain extent; (2) China is now at the left of the turning point of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, and the increase of per capita GDP will aggravate environmental pollution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (02) ◽  
pp. 373-388
Author(s):  
Oksana Vinska ◽  
Volodymyr Tokar

Purpose – The article aims at discovering classes and clusters of EU member-states considering their levels of economic development and gender equality to foster the enhancement of EU cohesion policy. Research methodology – The methodology includes the grouping by two parameters, economic development and gender equality, and the cluster analysis, the “far neighbor principle”, agglomerative hierarchical classification algorithm and the usual Euclidean distance as the distance between objects. Findings – There are no gender equality laggards among EU member-states. More developed countries belong to gender equality leaders, while there are two gender equality leaders and one gender equality adopter among transition countries. The group of less developed countries consists of six gender equality leaders and seven gender equality adopters. Research limitations – The results of cluster analysis may be impacted by off-shore activity of Ireland and Luxembourg. Practical implications – The EU supranational bodies can use our results to develop more efficient cohesion policy tools to ensure the adherence to the principle of gender equality. Originality/Value – The study is a pioneer one in determining nine classes and five clusters of EU member-states considering their levels of economic development and gender equality, as well as in introducing three types of countries depending on their level of gender equality, namely gender equality leaders, adopters, and laggards.


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