Economic Growth and Evolution of Gender Equality

We put forward a theoretical growth model where the degree of gender equality evolves towards the value maximising social output. It follows that a woman’s bargaining power positively depends on her relative productivity. When an economy is less developed, physical strength is quite important for production and therefore the total output is bigger when the man has larger share of the reward. As society develops and accumulates physical and human capital, the woman becomes more productive, which drives social norms towards gender equality. By endogenising gender balance of power we can explain why it differs across societies and how it evolves over the time.