Gender equality in education and economic growth in selected Southern African countries

Poverty reduction remains a big challenge in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, and economic growth is seen as a key ingredient to reduce poverty rates. Therefore, the region has been making significant commitments to embrace a more inclusive growth approach through the creation of the SADC Gender Unit as well as the regional Protocol on Gender. The aim of these interventions is to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty rates. However, the attempts at testing for a positive and significant contribution of gender equality in education on economic growth have generated mixed results. Furthermore, as the empirical evidence comes from various parts of the world, only very little attention has been devoted to the SADC region. This research aims to fill this gap in literature. Hence this study examines the impact of gender equality in education on economic growth on a panel data of five Southern African countries between 1970 and 2010. The number of panels was restricted by data availability and a set of regression equation have been carried out for the sample, using Stata software Version 12. In this analysis, gender equality in education is measured by the ratio of girls to boys in primary enrolment, and economic growth is measured by real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita at 2005 constant prices. To account for the possible endogeneity of the gender equality variable, the instrumental variable (IV) techniques are used. Gender equality in education is instrumented by religion as it tested to be a powerful instrument. The evidence presented in this analysis suggests that there is a positive and significant effect of gender equality in education on economic growth in the region at 1% and 10% significance levels. We have also tested the sensitivity of our results to changes in the model specification. The dependent variable was re-specified to per capita GDP at purchasing power parity as opposed to real GDP per capita. In addition a time-trend variable was added to the existing explanatory variable. Gender equality in education remains positive and significant at the 1% significance level. These results indicate that the effects of gender equality in education to be positive significant and robust to changes in specification. This result advocates some policy adjustment in education planning within the region to ensure the retention of girl students, as well as raising education quality, to stimulate economic growth. Reducing gender inequality in education will not only promote growth but also help to d advance other valuable development goals.