Gender Equality: Which Policies Have the Biggest Bang for the Buck?

Sonali Jain-Chandra, Kalpana Kochhar, Monique Newiak, Yang Yang and Edda Zoli

No 2018/105, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal and structural policies and gender inequality in education and labor force participation for countries at different stages of development. Due to the substantial number of possible factors that link with gender inequality previously highlighted in the literature, we pay particular attention to addressing model uncertainty and using various statistical methods to find the variables with the strongest links to gender gaps. We find that higher public spending on education, better sanitation facilities, low adolescent fertility, and narrower marriage age gaps are significantly related to narrower gender gaps in education. We also find that better infrastructure, a stronger institutional environment, more equal legal rights, and low adolescent fertility rates are strongly associated with higher female labor force participation. When labor market protection is low, an increase in protection is associated with a narrowing of labor force participation gaps between men and women. But when labor market protection levels are high, an increase in protection is associated with a widening in labor force participation gaps.

Keywords: WP; labor force; participation gap; labor market; public spending; gender gap; female labor force participation; labor market protection; bang for the buck; protection index; marriage age gap; fertility rate; Labor force participation; Gender inequality; Gender diversity; Women; Sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; North America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2018-05-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=45823 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2018/105

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().