Impact of gender inequality

Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender. It arises from differences in socially constructed gender roles as well as biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences.

There are many reasons to be concerned about existing gender inequalities in important well-being related dimensions such as education, health, employment, or pay. From a well-being as well as an equity perspective, such gender inequalities are problematic as they lower well-being and are a form of injustice in most conceptions of equity or justice. While such a view would argue for reducing gender inequalities in these dimensions of well-being on intrinsic grounds, recently a literature has developed that has investigated the instrumental effects of gender inequality on other important development outcomes with a particular focus on economic growth.

The glass ceiling effect is also considered a possible contributor to the gender wage gap or income disparity. This effect suggests that gender provides significant disadvantages towards the top of job hierarchies which become worse as a person’s career goes on. The term glass ceiling implies that invisible or artificial barriers exist which prevent women from advancing within their jobs or receiving promotions. These barriers exist in spite of the achievements or qualifications of the women and still exist when other characteristics that are job-relevant such as experience, education, and abilities are controlled for. The inequality effects of the glass ceiling are more prevalent within higher-powered or higher income occupations, with fewer women holding these types of occupations. The glass ceiling effect also indicates the limited chances of women for income raises and promotion or advancement to more prestigious positions or jobs. As women are prevented by these artificial barriers from receiving job promotions or income raises, the effects of the inequality of the glass ceiling increase over the course of a woman’s career.

Gender inequalities often stem from social structures that have institutionalized conceptions of gender differences.

Marginalization occurs on an individual level when someone feels as if they are on the fringes or margins of their respective society. This is a social process and displays how current policies in place can affect people. For example, media advertisements display young girls with easy bake ovens (promoting being a housewife) as well as with dolls that they can feed and change the diaper of (promoting being a mother). When women are not the stereotypical housewife and mother, they have to face the consequences that come along with that.

Sexism and discrimination

Gender inequality can further be understood through the mechanisms of sexism. Discrimination takes place in this manner as men and women are subject to prejudicial treatment on the basis of gender alone. Sexism occurs when men and women are framed within two dimensions of social cognition.

Discrimination also plays out with networking and in preferential treatment within the economic market. Men typically occupy positions of power within the job economy. Due to taste or preference for other men because they share similar characteristics, men in these positions of power are more likely to hire or promote other men, thus discriminating against women.

Gender Inequality and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence

There have been a number of theoretical and empirical studies finding that gender inequality in education and employment reduce economic growth. The main arguments from the literature, which are discussed in detail in Klasen (1999, 2002, 2006) are briefly summarized below.

Regarding gender inequality in education, the theoretical literature suggests that such gender inequality reduces the average amount of human capital in a society and thus harms economic performance. It does so as by artificially restricting the pool of talent from which to draw for education and thereby excluding highly qualified girls (and taking less qualified boys instead, e.g. Dollar and Gatti, 1999).

Moreover, if there are declining marginal returns to education, restricting the education of girls to lower levels while taking the education of boys to higher levels means that the marginal return to educating girls is higher than that of boys and thus would boost overall economic performance (World Bank 2001; Knowles et al. 2002).

Another argument relates to externalities of female education. Promoting female education is known to reduce fertility levels, reduce child mortality levels, and promote the education of the next generation. Each factor in turn has a positive impact on economic growth. Thus gender gaps in education reduce the benefits to society of high female education (e.g. Galor and Weil 1996; Lagerlöf 1999; World Bank 2001; King, Klasen, and Porter 2008). There is also an important timing issue involved here.

Reduced fertility levels will, after some twenty years, lead to a favourable demographic constellation which Bloom and Williamson (1998) refer to as a ‘demographic gift’. For a period of several decades, the working age population will grow much faster than overall population, thus lowering dependency rates with positive repercussions for per capita economic growth.

A third argument relates to international competitiveness. Many East Asian countries have been able to be competitive on world markets through the use of femaleintensive export-oriented manufacturing industries, a strategy that is now finding followers in South Asia and individual countries across the developing world (e.g. Seguino, 2000a, b).