IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v197y2026ics0305750x25002694.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Globalization and gender equality

Author

Listed:
  • Gründler, Klaus
  • Potrafke, Niklas
  • Schmid, Ramona
  • Sturm, Jan-Egbert

Abstract

Legal rights continue to differ between women and men, particularly in developing countries. In this paper, we examine whether economic integration can improve gender equality by law. We design a novel instrumental variable strategy based on regional waves of globalization, which serve as strong exogenous predictors of national globalization trends. Our main estimate suggests that an increase of one-third in the globalization index, equivalent to a permanent transition from Indonesia to the United States, is associated with a 12.1 and women are treated equally by law. We also find that this effect is almost entirely driven by de facto globalization. Linking globalization to more than 300,000 individuals from about 100 countries, we provide evidence for a microfoundation of the macroeconomic effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas & Schmid, Ramona & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 2026. "Globalization and gender equality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:197:y:2026:i:c:s0305750x25002694
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X25002694
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107183?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:

    • F68 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Policy
    • F61 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Microeconomic Impacts
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • K38 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Human Rights Law; Gender Law; Animal Rights Law

    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:wdevel:v:197:y:2026:i:c:s0305750x25002694. 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/worlddev .

    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.