Effect of Women's Higher Education on Economic Growth in Some OPEC and North Africa Countries

A great portion of economic growth deals with education and development implies a gradual substitution of human quality instead of their quantity in development process. Improvement and higher education of women and their role in economic growth should be considered from this aspect. Recently, many empirical studies have evaluated the effect of higher education based on sexual separation on economic growth. The result of these studies shows that the higher education of women has a positive impact on economic growth. This paper, analyses the role of women higher education in economic growth of some OPEC member countries and North Africa including: Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, Ecuador, Morocco and Tunisia. This paper uses panel data over 1991-2010 period and a modified neo-classical Mankiw-Romer-Weil growth model which all levels of education are employed. The results of this study indicate that women higher education has positive and significant effect on GDP per capita in these countries which shows the high importance of women higher education in expediting the economic growth of the studied countries.Bearing in mind, the empirical and statistical description in this study, it appears it is necessary for these countries to invest in higher education of women proportionate to the higher educations by means of adopting suitable policies for scientific development necessary for economic growth.