Chart of the Week: Educate Girls and Women to Boost Equality

IMF Blog, August 22, 2018

Source details

Analysis period: 1980-2014.
Policies that narrow gender gaps in education have paid off the most in all regions.
Education contributed to narrowing the gender gap by region:
- North America: 47 percentage points.
- Europe and Central Asia: more than 41 percentage points.
- East Asia and the Pacific: more than 35 percentage points.
- South Asia: 16 percentage points.
- Sub-Saharan Africa: 16 percentage points.
Most regions narrowed the labor force participation gap by more than 10 percentage points on average through legal institutions and equality in legal rights for women during the time frame studied.
Strong legal institutions, as measured by the control of corruption and the economic risk rating of a country, played a role in increasing female labor force participation.
Equal legal rights for women, specifically equal inheritance rights, served to reduce the gender gap between men and women.
Middle East and North Africa is an exception, still facing a relatively high number of legal restrictions against women.
Infrastructure improvements—particularly sanitation facilities including access to running water and electricity—reduce time spent on household work and increase opportunity to join the labor market; South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have potential to catch up.

Continued lower female labor force participation results in:
- Less economic power for women.
- Lower savings and pensions for women.
- Lower growth and economic development in affected countries.
Women’s access to education, social and financial services, and legal rights remains limited in emerging markets and low-income countries.

Education
- Girls need to go to school and stay in school.
Fiscal policies
- Improve infrastructure, especially sanitation facilities in low-income countries.
Social campaigns and policies
- Reduce adolescent fertility.
- Equalize the legal marriage age for women and men to keep girls in school.

Source: Chart of the Week: Educate Girls and Women to Boost Equality — The Editors, August 22, 2018.