The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth: New Evidence for a Panel of Countries

By Stephan Klasen, Francesca Lamanna. 2009

882 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Using cross-country and panel regressions, we investigate to what extent gender gaps in education and employment (proxied using gender gaps in labor force participation) reduce economic growth. Using the most recent data and investigating an extended time period (1960–2000), we update the results of previous studies on education gaps on growth and extend the analysis to employment gaps using panel data. We find that gender gaps in education and employment considerably reduce economic growth. The combined “costs” of education and employment gaps in the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia amount respectively to 0.9–1.7 and 0.1–1.6 percentage point differences in growth compared to East Asia. Gender gaps in employment appear to have an increasing effect on economic growth differences between regions, with the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia suffering from slower growth in female employment.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Gender Studies, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e862020bef6859eeedf01d01235f6a63ad262d2f

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Citations in the corpus

Gender Equality and Economic Growth: Is there a Win‐Win? (2013, background): “The studies by Klasen (1999, 2002) and Klasen and Lamanna (2009) cited earlier investigated the implications of gender inequality in labour market participation on economic growth.”
The relationship between LGBT inclusion and economic development: Macro-level evidence (2019, neutral): “Education plays a key role, and many studies conclude that inequality in women’s education is associated with lower economic growth (Knowles, Lorgelly, & Owen, 2002; Klasen, 2002; Klasen & Lamanna, 2009).”
Aggregate Costs of Gender Gaps in the Labor Market: A Quantitative Estimate (2016, neutral): “Some studies show a negative e ect of gaps in the labor force participation on a country's economic performance (Klasen and Lamanna, 2009; Thévenon et al., 2012, ILO, 2014).”
What Explains the Stagnation of Female Labor Force Participation in Urban India? (2015, background): “High and rising female employment levels were in fact critical in sustaining East Asia‟s high economic growth (Klasen and Lamanna, 2009; Young, 1995).”
Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labor Force Participation During India's Economic Boom (2012, background): “Given the positive effect female participation can have on economic growth (Esteve-Volart, 2004; Klasen and Lamanna, 2009), drawing women into the labor force can be a significant source of future growth of the Indian economy.”
Empowering Women Through Financial Inclusion: A Study of Urban Slum (2019, background): “There are significant empirical evidences recommending that gender imbalance, to a great extent, harm economic advancement (Klasen, 2002), and gender difference in employment and education prompts negative effect on nation’s long stint development (Klasen & Lamanna, 2009).”
Does Gender Inequality Hinder Development and Economic Growth? Evidence and Policy Implications (2013, background): “Finally, Klasen and Lamanna (2009) find a negative relationship between gender gaps in labor force participation and economic growth using cross-country growth regressions for 1960–90.”
Help or Hindrance? Religion's Impact on Gender Inequality in Attitudes and Outcomes (2011, background): “…ratios have been argued to have positive effects on GDP, based on a selection distortion argument—greater gender balance in labor force participation and education draws more heavily from the available pool of talent, thus stimulating efficiency and national income (Klasen & Lamanna, 2009).”
The Impact of Gender Inequality on Economic Performance in Developing Countries (2018, methodology): “For example, Klasen (2002) and Klasen and Lamanna (2009) show that, if South Asia had East Asia s ge de gaps i edu atio , it ould ha e grown by about 0.8-1% faster per capita per year between 1960-2000 than it actually did.”
Employment transitions of women in India: A panel analysis (2019, background): “Existing evidence suggests that gender gap in employment reduces economic growth (Klasen and Lamanna, 2009).”
Globalization and gender equality in the course of development (2012, background): “…in education, health, employment, etc. – whether these aspects of gender equality are spurred by globalization or not – have been shown to increase economic growth (see for example, Dollar and Gatti 1999, Klasen 2002, Knowles et al. 2002, Klasen and Lamanna 2009, Schober and Winter-Ebmer 2011).”
Fair Play::More Equal Laws Boost Female Labor Force Participation (2015, background): “Various studies highlight that gender gaps in labor force participation, entrepreneurial activity, and education impede economic growth (Cuberes and Teignier 2014; Esteve-Volart 2004; Klasen and Lamanna 2009).”
The role of financial inclusion in driving women’s economic empowerment (2019, background): “Various studies found negative e ﬀ ects of gender inequality in education on economic growth (e.g. Dollar and Gatti 1999; Klasen 1999; Klasen and Lamanna 2009; Seguino 2010), as well as correlations between gender inequality and income inequality (Gonzales et al. 2015).”