Does Gender Inequality Hinder Economic Growth?

One of the main goals of government is to increase economic growth and public welfare. Therefore, the recognition of useful factors that facilitate achievement of this goal has critical role in economic literature. This study focuses on the effect of gender inequality on the reduction of economic growth and investigate whether gender inequality have significant effect on economic development and growth? First, different aspects of gender inequality such as gender inequality in education, employment and wage are addressed. Then, the relationship between gender inequality and economic growth is tested. Our empirical findings are based on Panel-Data Regressions for OECD countries over 1990-2010. Results show that GDP per capita growth is negatively related to gender inequality in education and wage and has a nonlinear relationship with the gender inequality in employment.