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Over the past two decades, economists have turned their attention to exploring the role of gender in the macroeconomy. This paper reviews the salient findings of that literature. Research shows that gender gaps in education, health, unpaid labor, employment, and wages have economy-wide consequences and influence the rate of growth. The effects are transmitted via both the supply side of the economy – principally through labor productivity – and the demand side – through business spending, exports, saving, and the balance of payments. In turn, a broad array of macro-level policies, including fiscal, monetary, and trade policies have differential effects by gender that, if unheeded, can undermine macro-policy goals. Their impact depends on the structure of the economy and the gender division of labor in paid and unpaid work. This survey makes clear that incorporation of gender into macro models improves the relevance of macroeconomic theory and can yield better policy results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist economists and heterodox macroeconomists have contributed substantively to the body of research that explores the distributional effects of macro policies. This work explicitly addresses the livelihood problems created by neoliberalism and, in addition, it provides a pathway for identifying financing mechanisms. Building on earlier work by Seguino and Grown (2006), this article synthesizes and elaborates the major contributions of this body of gender and macro research and, from this, extrapolates macro‐level policies and tools that support gender equality. Among the tools identified is targeted government spending on physical and social infrastructure, the latter a relatively new conceptual tool that is discussed in detail. A key argument is that financing for gender equality that raises economy‐wide productivity can be self‐sustaining. As a result, both physical and social infrastructure spending have the ability to create fiscal space. This possibility offers a financing framework for gender equality expenditures. A contribution of this article is to critique mainstream monetary policies and identify alternative approaches that expand the toolkit to achieve gender equality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While women's share of employment has risen in many countries over the last two decades, gender job segregation has worsened, with women increasingly excluded from 'good' jobs in the industrial sector. In this article, the determinants of gender job segregation are assessed using panel data for a broad set of developing countries covering the period 1991–2015. The effect of gender job segregation on all workers, via the labour share of income, is also analysed. The results identify two major contributors to gender job segregation — the rising capital/labour ratio and the ratio of female/male labour force participation rates — indicative of 'crowding' and exclusion as economies move up the industrial ladder. The analysis further indicates that the crowding of women into lower quality jobs has a negative effect on workers as a whole by dampening the labour share of income. Those processes are influenced by global and macroeconomic conditions and policies that have circumscribed the expansion of high‐quality jobs relative to labour supply, intensifying competition for 'good' jobs and weakening labour's bargaining power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than thirty years into the modern era of globalization, scholars are now in a position to evaluate the distributive effects of the policy shifts that have led to greater economic integration. One region of the world for which little robust empirical evidence exists on gendered employment effects is Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To identify whether there is an impact of economic and trade structure on women's relative access to work, this contribution empirically explores these issues for thirty-eight SSA countries, and for two subgroups. Panel data for the period 1991-2010 is examined using fixed effects, random effects and two-stage least-squares estimation techniques. Findings suggest that trade liberalization has gendered employment effects, with the direction depending on the structure of the economy. However, the more robust finding is that a country's infrastructure has played a determining role in gendered labor market outcomes in SSA since the early 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies designed to pursue an equity-led macroeconomic growth strategy must take into account feedback effects, with distribution itself influencing macroeconomic outcomes. Under the right conditions, a more equitable distribution of income and opportunities in the form of human development can be a stimulus to growth, funding further investments in human development. Developing the policies to create those conditions is the central challenge for any human development-centered macroeconomic framework. I review here some macro-level policies that achieve this goal, identifying a key role for fiscal policy to raise productivity and for monetary policy to expand employment, a central goal of any macro-inclusive strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper investigates the effect of religiosity on attitudes toward gender equality using World Values Survey data. Results indicate that religiosity is strongly correlated with gender inequitable attitudes across countries. Further, OLS, TSLS, and 3SLS regression estimates reveal that gender inequitable attitudes are associated with negative effects on seven measures of gender equality of well-being and public policy. No single religion stands out as more gender inequitable than others. The impact of religiosity is likely transmitted via “stealth” effects on everyday behavior in economic transactions in labor markets, household resource allocation, and government spending. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An unresolved debate in the development literature concerns the impact of gender equality on economic growth. Previous studies have found that the effect varies, depending on the measure of equality (wages or capabilities). This paper expands that discussion by considering both the short and long run, evaluating the effects of gender equality in two types of economies—semi-industrialized economies (SIEs) and low-income agricultural economies (LIAEs). Further, it incorporates gender effects on the balance of payments constraint to growth. The results suggest that gender wage and capabilities equality work in opposite directions in SIEs and in the same (positive) direction in LIAEs. In the long-run analysis, government macroeconomic management policies are shown to be necessary in order to ratify movements towards gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global financial crisis that began in 2008 has resulted in the widespread destruction of jobs and livelihoods. Among the factors that precipitated the crisis, growing inequality both within and between countries contributed to low levels of aggregate demand and the reliance of low-income households on unsustainable borrowing to maintain living standards. The crisis provides the opportunity to rethink macroeconomic policy, and for feminist economists to advance proposals that promote jobs, economic security, and equality by class, gender, and ethnicity. Reviving the global economy will require policies that focus heavily on job creation, putting money into the hands of low- and middle-income households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, scholars have investigated the two-way relationship between gender inequality on the one hand, and economic development and growth on the other. Research in this area offers new ways to address the economic stagnation and crisis developing countries have experienced over the last two decades. This article contributes to that literature, exploring the channels by which gender inequality affects, and in important ways, constrains economic development and growth in the Caribbean region. It further explores the endogeneity of gender inequality to the macroeconomic policy environment. The article concludes with a discussion of economic policies that can promote a win-win outcome--greater gender equality and economic development and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms and stereotypes that perpetuate inequality are deeply embedded in social and individual consciousness and, as a result, are resistant to change. Gender stratification theories propose that women's control over material resources can increase bargaining power to leverage change in key institutions, prompting a shift to more equitable norms. By extension, policies that promote women's paid employment should serve as a fulcrum for gender equitable change. Is there any evidence to support this hypothesis? Investigating this requires a means to capture gender norms and stereotypes. The World Values Survey provides just such a mechanism because it contains a series of gender questions that span a twenty-year period and includes respondents from more than seventy countries. This paper uses that survey's data to analyze determinants of trends in norms and stereotypes over time and across countries, and finds evidence that increases in women's paid employment promotes gender equitable norms and stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the possibility that unregulated FDI flows are causally implicated in the decline in labor productivity growth in semi-industrialized economies. These effects are hypothesized to operate through the negative impact of firm mobility on worker bargaining power and thus wages. Downward pressure on wages can reduce the pressure on firms to raise productivity in defense of profits, contributing to a low wage-low productivity trap. This paper presents empirical evidence, based on panel data fixed effects and GMM estimation for 37 semi-industrialized economies that supports the causal link between increased firm mobility and lower wages, as well as slower productivity growth over the period 1970–2000. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the gender distribution of the benefits of economic growth in several Asian economies from 1970-90. Using Borda rank ordering, we compare the progress made in these countries towards closing the gender gap in well-being. In addition to commonly-used indicators, trends in the ratio of females to males in the population are examined. We explore determinants of changes in this ratio, using regression analysis. The results indicate that gender equity in quality-of-life ratings is highest in those Asian economies that grew the slowest over the period in question. Further, the data indicate that economic growth does not have a significant effect on the female-to-male population ratios for this set of countries. Variables that affect women's bargaining power do, however, have a positive effect on relative female life chances, as does spending on public education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Absent from the important debate on the determinants of rapid Asian growth is the role of gender inequality. This paper argues that gender wage inequality has stimulated growth, with Asian economies that disadvantaged women the most growing the fastest from 1975 to 1990. Low female wages have spurred investment and exports by lowering unit labor costs, providing the foreign exchange to purchase capital and intermediate goods which raise productivity and growth rates. These results contrast with recent studies that argue income equality at the household level contributed favorably to Asian growth by reducing political conflict. The divergent findings can be explained by the fact that gender norms and stereotypes that convince women to accept their low status curb labor and political unrest, stimulating investment. The results indicate that which group bears the burden of inequality in the process of economic growth matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on a study which investigated empirically the determinants of economic growth for a set of semi-industrialized export-oriented economies in which women provide the bulk of labor in the export sector. Theoretical underpinnings of the role of gender as a macro variable; Growth accounting approach used; Regression results.

Presents a study which examined export-led growth and the relation between gender, wage, inequality in South Korea. Theoretical perspectives on the relationship between export-led growth, economic development and gender; Impact the export-led growth strategy had on female and male wages and employment in the manufacturing sector; How the results of this study differ from previous studies.

This paper applies thematic analysis to survey data obtained from a sample of AFDC recipients to investigate the complexities of single-parent decision-making in low-income households. A basic needs budget is developed to determine the adequacy of women's wages to provide for children's minimal material needs. In surveys, parents indicate their primary goal is the well-being of the children, determined by the adequacy of several types of resources, which we categorize into four groups: 1) material resources, 2) caring resources, 3) community resources, and 4) the macro-level environment. Using this framework, we develop a schematic model of single-parent decision-making, incorporating the assumption that children's level of need and well-being are determined not only by the cost and availability of material resources but also by psychological factors such as gender conflicts, neighborhood safety, as well as parents' time and social networks that provide caring labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Using data from a meta-wage analysis, Schober and Winter-Ebmer fail to confirm my earlier finding that gender wage inequality stimulates growth in semi-industrialized economies [SIEs]. The authors contend their wage data, based on micro-level studies with heterogeneous coverage, are superior to the education-adjusted manufacturing wages on which my paper relied. In response, I elucidate why wage data should be restricted to the manufacturing sector. I explore possible measurement errors their data introduce and note concerns with the meta-regression approach that limit the applicability of these data to the specific task of understanding the growth effect of gender inequality in SIEs. Finally, I discuss advances made over the last decade in the methodology used to evaluate gender effects on growth, identifying directions for new research on this important topic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Analysis of employment across 10 occupations in 27 industries in Latin America show high level of gender segregation. • From 1990 to 2018, women's share of good jobs has increased, yet gender gap in access to good jobs remains substantial. • Public social spending is positively and significantly correlated with women's access to good jobs relative to men's. • Industrial upgrading benefits only men. • There is a non-linear relationship between technological advances in industrial sector and the quality of women's employment. Latin America has seen vast improvements in gender educational and health equality. Favorable supply-side conditions, however, have not translated into greater gender economic equality, a process that also depends on structural economic change and global macroeconomic conditions. In this paper, we assess the role of a variety of macro-level policies and structures in influencing trends in women's access to high-quality jobs for a sample of 15 countries in Latin America over the period 1990–2018. Using micro-level data, we first evaluate women's relative share of good jobs, defined in terms of women's weekly earnings in an industry or occupation relative to the national median wage. Further, we econometrically estimate the association between a variety of macro-level variables and the relative quality of women's jobs. Results indicate that the most significant and robust positive correlate of women's relative access to good jobs is public social spending as a share of GDP. Other important macro-covariates include measures of labor market regulation, monetary and fiscal policy, and macroeconomic structure and global orientation, including financial openness. The results suggest that macro-level structures and policies related to globalization that hamper the achievement of greater gender equality can be offset by appropriately targeted government policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution brings together various strands of analysis about the causes, consequences, and policy ramifications of economic crises, with a specific focus on distributional dynamics. It aims to facilitate a conversation between macroeconomic theorists of crises and instability and feminist economists and scholars of intergroup inequality. Macroeconomic analyses of the Great Recession have centered on the causal role of financial deregulation, capital flow imbalances, and growth of income and wealth inequality. That work tends to be divorced from research that analyzes broader distributional impacts, prior to the crisis and subsequently, transmitted through economic channels and government responses. This study's framework emphasizes the role of stratification along multiple trajectories - race, class, and gender - in contributing to economic crises and in shaping their distributional dynamics. The study underscores the long-run effects of the 2008 crisis on well-being, highlighted in feminist economists' research on social reproduction and often missed in the macroeconomics literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines connections between intergroup inequality and macroeconomic outcomes, considering various channels through which gender, growth, and development interact. It upholds the salience not only of equality in opportunities but also equality in outcomes. The contribution argues that inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, and class undermine the ability to provision and expand capabilities, and it examines the macroeconomic policies that are likely to promote broadly shared development. It explores how the macroeconomy acts as a structure of constraint in achieving gender equality and in turn how gender relations in areas like education and wage gaps can have macro-level impacts. Further, it underscores that the interaction of the macroeconomy and gender relations depends on the structure of the economy, the nature of job segregation, the particular measure of gender inequality, and a country's international relations. Finally, it outlines policies for promoting gender equality as both an intrinsic goal and a step toward improving well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]