Global trends in intra-household gender inequality

Deepak Malghan and Hema Swaminathan ()

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 189, issue C, 515-546

Abstract: We present trends in intra-household gender inequality for forty five different countries across a four decade period (1973–2016), using global micro-data from 2.85 million households. Intra-household gender inequality has declined by 20% in the four decades that we study. However, current levels are still significant so that any neglect of intra-household gender inequality results in a substantial underestimation of overall earnings inequality. For a sub-sample of countries, we show that the relationship between intra-household gender inequality and household economic status is non-monotonic – that we refer to as the “micro-GKC” (micro Gender Kuznets Curve) relationship. We also develop an empirical framework to measure the aggregate welfare loss from intra-household gender inequality. For a range of plausible inequality aversion assumptions, we report a median welfare loss of over 15% of aggregate earnings.

Keywords: Micro-GKC; Atkinson inequality metric; Gender equality; LIS & LWS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I31 J16 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:189:y:2021:i:c:p:515-546

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.07.022

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