IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v37y2019i3p545-559.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Greater Attention To Women'S Rights Help Address Income Inequality?

Author

Listed:
  • Nabamita Dutta
  • Lisa Giddings
  • Sanjukta Roy

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between women's economic, social, and political rights with the level of income inequality. We use dynamic panel estimation to check our hypothesis that that strong rights for women translate into higher participation in economic productive activities, improve income and education and support for future generations, thus reducing the overall income inequality in the economy. We further look at how a country's overall economic performance and the status of women's education alter the relationship. The relationship is strengthened if countries are either in the higher‐income spectrum or have higher levels of female educational attainment. (JEL O1, I00, H00)

Suggested Citation

  • Nabamita Dutta & Lisa Giddings & Sanjukta Roy, 2019. "Can Greater Attention To Women'S Rights Help Address Income Inequality?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 545-559, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:545-559
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.12406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12406
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.12406?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. José De Gregorio & Jong–Wha Lee, 2002. "Education and Income Inequality: New Evidence From Cross‐Country Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 395-416, September.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    3. Hongyi Li & Heng-fu Zou, 2002. "Inflation, Growth, and Income Distribution: A Cross-Country Study," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 3(1), pages 85-101, May.
    4. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2008. "Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 95-144, March.
    5. Arland Thornton, 2001. "The developmental paradigm, reading history sideways, and family change," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(4), pages 449-465, November.
    6. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    7. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2006. "Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 319-324, May.
    8. Muhammad Khan & Muhammad Khan & Khalid Zaman & Umar Hassan & Sobia Umar, 2014. "Global estimates of growth–inequality–poverty (GIP) triangle: evidence from World Bank’s classification countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2631-2646, September.
    9. Ms. Stefania Fabrizio & Davide Furceri & Mr. Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu & Ms. Grace B Li & Mrs. Sandra V Lizarazo Ruiz & Ms. Marina Mendes Tavares & Mr. Futoshi Narita & Mr. Adrian Peralta Alva, 2017. "Macro-Structural Policies and Income Inequality in Low-Income Developing Countries," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2017/001, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Maurice J. G. Bun & Frank Windmeijer, 2010. "The weak instrument problem of the system GMM estimator in dynamic panel data models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(1), pages 95-126, February.
    11. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 2015. "Is an increasing capital share under capitalism inevitable?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 82-86.
    12. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2010. "Labour Market Institutions and the Personal Distribution of Income in the OECD," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 413-450, July.
    13. Alka Obadic & Nika Simurina & Robert Sonora, 2014. "The effects of tax policy and labour market institutions on income inequality," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 32(1), pages 121-140.
    14. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    15. Kapsos, Steven. & Bourmpoula, Evangelia., 2013. "Employment and economic class in the developing world," ILO Working Papers 994855123402676, International Labour Organization.
    16. Nabamita Dutta & Russell Sobel, 2016. "Does corruption ever help entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 179-199, June.
    17. World Bank, 2014. "World Development Indicators 2014," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18237, December.
    18. Roine, Jesper & Vlachos, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2009. "The long-run determinants of inequality: What can we learn from top income data?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 974-988, August.
    19. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447, December.
    20. repec:ilo:ilowps:485512 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    22. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    24. Bassett, William F. & Burkett, John P. & Putterman, Louis, 1999. "Income distribution, government transfers, and the problem of unequal influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 207-228, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xia Ling & Yanhong Liu, 2023. "The Coordination of Environmental Protection and Female Discrimination Based on the Concept of Affirmative Action," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-10, February.
    2. Cong Wang & Amjad Naveed, 2021. "Can Women Empowerment Explain Cross-Country Differences in Inequality? A Global Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 667-697, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cooray, Arusha & Dutta, Nabamita & Mallick, Sushanta, 2017. "The right to be free: is media freedom good news for women's rights?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 327-355, June.
    2. Kotschy, Rainer & Sunde, Uwe, 2017. "Democracy, inequality, and institutional quality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 209-228.
    3. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    4. Bebonchu Atems & Grayden Shand, 2018. "An empirical analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and income inequality," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 905-922, December.
    5. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. de Moraes, Claudio Oliveira & Roquete, Raphael Moses & Gawryszewski, Gustavo, 2023. "Who needs cash? Digital finance and income inequality," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 84-93.
    7. Gravina, Antonio Francesco & Lanzafame, Matteo, 2021. "Finance, globalisation, technology and inequality: Do nonlinearities matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 96-110.
    8. Andrew Berg & Jonathan D. Ostry & Charalambos G. Tsangarides & Yorbol Yakhshilikov, 2018. "Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 259-305, September.
    9. Arusha Cooray & Nabamita Dutta & Sushanta Mallick, 2016. "Does female human capital formation matter for the income effect of remittances? Evidence from developing countries," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 458-478, October.
    10. Vieira, Flávio & MacDonald, Ronald & Damasceno, Aderbal, 2012. "The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 127-140.
    11. Zheng, Xinye & Li, Fanghua & Song, Shunfeng & Yu, Yihua, 2013. "Central government's infrastructure investment across Chinese regions: A dynamic spatial panel data approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 264-276.
    12. Maurice J.G. Bun & Sarafidis, V., 2013. "Dynamic Panel Data Models," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 13-01, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    13. Nabamita Dutta & Deepraj Mukherjee, 2018. "Can financial development enhance transparency?," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 279-302, November.
    14. Njangang, Henri & Beleck, Alim & Tadadjeu, Sosson & Kamguia, Brice, 2022. "Do ICTs drive wealth inequality? Evidence from a dynamic panel analysis," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(2).
    15. Henri Njangang & Alim Beleck & Sosson Tadadjeu & Brice Kamguia, 2021. "Do ICTs drive wealth inequality? Evidence from a dynamic panel analysis," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 21/057, African Governance and Development Institute..
    16. Assi Okara, 2022. "Building Stronger Economic Institutions in Developing Countries, the Role of FDI," CERDI Working papers hal-03617915, HAL.
    17. Bartolini, David & Santolini, Raffaella, 2017. "Political institutions behind good governance," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 68-85.
    18. Fiseha Gebregziabher & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2014. "Social Spending and Aggregate Welfare in Developing and Transition Economies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack, 2018. "World Bank Policy Lending and the Quality of Public-Sector Governance," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 29-54.
    20. Gründler, Klaus & Köllner, Sebastian, 2017. "Determinants of governmental redistribution: Income distribution, development levels, and the role of perceptions," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 930-962.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:545-559. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.