Effect of Gender Inequality

744 Words3 Pages
Economists have commonly focused on per-capita income as the primary indicator of development, although there are several other indicators of development and well-being.1 In mainstream economic theory, education often represents one important aspect of human capital and enters the production function with a positive coefficient. Lower male or female educationallevelstranslateintolowerhumancapital.Thus,intheory,thereis a direct effect from female education to income (or growth). There are also some solid arguments to support additional positive influences of female educationongrowthbeyondthisdirecteffect.Theseincludetheimpactonthe mother’shealth,thechild’shealthandeducation,andfertilityrates.Empirical data have, in general, supported the existence of these indirect effects. Higher female education makes women better-informed mothers and hence could contribute to lowering child mortality rates and malnutrition (Aly and Grabowski, 1990; Smith and Haddad, 1999; Knowles et al., 2002; Klasen, 2003). Increasing the proportion of educated women may also contribute to lowering fertility rates. In general, female education is negatively correlated to fertility and lower fertility levels are associated with lower dependency ratios. In turn, lower dependency ratios are associated with higher income Their measure of gender inequality was the share of the adult female population for whom secondary education was the highest level attained, controlling for the share of the adult male population for whom some secondary education was the highest level attained.5 Along with standard growth Klasen and Lamanna (2009) confirmed these earlier results using an updated dataset on educational achievements covering the time period 1960-2000 for 93 countries and re-estimating the direct and indirect impact of gender inequality in schooling, as well as the impact of gender inequality in
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