The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Updates and Extensions

Using cross-country and panel regressions, we investigate to what extent gender gaps in education and employment reduce economic growth. Using most recent data and investigating a long 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. the combined ‘costs’ of education and employment gaps in 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. 1 A version of this paper was written as a background paper for the World Bank Flagship Report “Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa. Women in the public sphere” (2004). Funding from the World Bank in support of this work is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Nadereh Chamlou, Susan Razzazz, four anonymous referees, participants at the MENA consultative council meeting on gender at the World Bank, Paula Lorgelly and participants at seminars in Munich and Cambridge for helpful comments and discussion.