Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17786
Authors: Ying Feng; Jie Ren; Michelle Rendall
Abstract: The strikingly large gender education gap in low-income countries robustly narrows and reverses with economic development. To study the driving forces quantitatively, we propose a three-sector framework in which development features exogenous skill-biased technological change, structural change, gender-biased technological change, changes in marriage markets, and home productivity improvement. The model is parameterized to match contrasting labor market outcomes by education and gender across the development spectrum. Counterfactual exercises show that skill-biased technological change and structural change explain most of the narrowing gender education gap. Our model suggests that the marketization of services becomes important only after economics are sufficiently developed.
Keywords: Development; Structural Change; Skill-Biased Technical Change
JEL Codes: E24; I25; J16; J24; O41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| economic development (O29) | narrowing gender education gap (I24) |
| skill-biased structural change (F66) | narrowing gender education gap (I24) |
| skill-biased structural change (F66) | decrease in labor force participation rates among educated and uneducated women (J49) |
| structural transformation in services (O14) | women's education and labor market participation (J24) |
| gender-biased technological change (J16) | closing gender education gap (I24) |
| changes in assortative matching (C78) | closing gender education gap (I24) |
| home productivity changes (D13) | closing gender education gap (I24) |