Economic gender gap in the Global South: how institutional quality matters
Elena Bárcena-Martín, Samuel Medina-Claros & Salvador Pérez-Moreno
#2020-025
One of the most challenging gender gaps in the Global South remains in
the economic sphere. This paper examines how public institutional
quality affects the gender gap in economic participation and
opportunities in 74 developing and emerging countries during the period
2006-2016. We find that the quality of public institutions is closely
associated with the economic gender gap. Specifically, the protection of
property rights, security guarantees and government efficiency seem to
be the main factors associated to lower values of the economic gender
gap. Nevertheless, public institutions do not matter equally throughout
economically backward countries. Whereas in emerging countries,
particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, a broad variety of
institutional aspects, including undue influence on judicial and
government decisions, are closely related to the economic gender gap, in
low-income developing countries, such as Sub-Saharan countries, the
problems of ethics and corruption stand out as a key element against
economic gender equality. Some significant policy implications are
derived from our findings on the potential of public institutions
reforms to reduce economic gender gap.
Keywords: economic gender gap, economic participation and opportunities,
public institutions, developing and emerging countries
JEL Classification: E02, J16