Gender Differences in Socio-Emotional Skills and Economic Outcomes : New Evidencefrom 17 African Countries

Using data from 41,873 individuals across 17 African countries and 13 studies, this paper mapsdata from various self-reported scales to 10 socio-emotional skills and examine gender differences in these skills andtheir relationship with education and earnings. Apart from self-control, the findings show a significant male advantagein self-reported skills—men have an aggregate socio-emotional skill level 0.151 standard deviations higherthan women, equivalent to the socio-emotional skill gained over 5.6 years of education. This is robust to controllingfor positive self-concept. Closing the gender gap in education would close 17percent of this gap. While overallsocio-emotional skill and education are positively correlated for both men and women, women do not have apositive correlation with education for some individual socio-emotional skills. The male advantage insocio-emotional skills increases at higher education levels. Socio-emotional skills are associated with higher earnings,especially for women. However, the specific skills associated with higher earnings differ by gender.Interpersonal skills are more strongly correlated with earnings for women than for men, and measures of theseskills are often underrepresented, which indicates a key direction for future research. The paper further examinesdifferences in the relationship between socio-emotional skills and earnings by levels of education and occupation.It discusses the implications of these results for interventions seeking to hone women’s socio-emotional skillsfor labor market success and to address the gender norms that may perpetuate gaps in socio-emotional skills.