Global trends in intra-household gender inequality

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Abstract

We present trends in intra-household gender inequality for forty five different countries across a four decade period (1973-2016), using global micro-data from 2.85 million households. Intra-household gender inequality has declined by 20% in the four decades that we study. However, current levels are still significant so that any neglect of intra-household gender inequality results in a substantial underestimation of overall earnings inequality. For a sub-sample of countries, we show that the relationship between intra-household gender inequality and household economic status is non-monotonic - that we refer to as the micro-GKC (micro Gender Kuznets Curve) relationship. We also develop an empirical framework to measure the aggregate welfare loss from intra-household gender inequality. For a range of plausible inequality aversion assumptions, we report a median welfare loss of over 15% of aggregate earnings.

Publication Date

1-9-2021

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

Vol.189

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