IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v90y2025ipbs0176268025001004.html

Effects of IMF-supported programs on gender inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Eicher, Theo S.
  • Eskimez, Reina Kawai
  • Newiak, Monique

Abstract

Macroeconomic volatility often entails policies that may disproportionately impact vulnerable populations. Some economies address weak economic fundamentals with IMF-supported reform programs, which have been shown to impact gender inequality. To accurately evaluate program effects, however, requires well-matched counterfactuals: How would gender disparities have evolved in the country in the absence of the program? We analyze 125 IMF-supported programs (1994–2022) using custom-tailored control groups that match each IMF-supported program country's gender/economic trends, including fiscal spending, debt, and reserves. For most countries, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that IMF-supported programs have no effect on gender inequality, as the observed gender outcomes were not statistically significantly different from those in controls with similar fiscal spending, debt, and reserves trajectories but no programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Eicher, Theo S. & Eskimez, Reina Kawai & Newiak, Monique, 2025. "Effects of IMF-supported programs on gender inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 90(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:90:y:2025:i:pb:s0176268025001004
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102740
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268025001004
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102740?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    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:eee:poleco:v:90:y:2025:i:pb:s0176268025001004. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    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.