Essays in gender economics

Gender inequality remains a persistent global challenge despite decades of progress and its recognition as a key UN Sustainable Development Goal. Disparities between men and women persist in education, health, employment, politics, and autonomy, rooted in institutions, cultural norms, and historical legacies. This PhD thesis contributes to understanding these inequalities through three essays that analyze economic, cultural, and institutional determinants of women’s status in both Western and Central Asian contexts. The first chapter investigates the marriage penalty in the United Kingdom using panel data and a stacked difference-in-differences approach. It shows that marriage itself, even before motherhood, reduces women’s earnings and labor market participation. The second chapter examines son preference in Kyrgyzstan, drawing on historical and contemporary data. It documents persistent and even rising son preference through fertility behaviors such as instrumental birth and sex-selective abortion. The third chapter focuses on bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, a practice affecting one-third of marriages. Using Life in Kyrgyzstan survey data, it shifts attention to grooms as agents of abduction, highlighting the intergenerational transmission of it and showing that education reduces bride kidnapping. Together, the chapters reveal how marriage, son preference, and bride kidnapping operate as mechanisms that restrict women’s agency and reinforce patriarchal structures. By linking economic penalties, cultural norms, and coercive practices, the thesis underscores that achieving gender equality requires not only legal reforms and policy measures but also shifts in social attitudes and institutional arrangements.