The impact of government expenditure on gender inequality in education in selected MENA countries

Education has an important role in empowerment of the women and decreasing the educational inequality between men and women. This paper aims to find the impact of government expenditure on gender development index in education and gender inequality in education. In order to test the research hypotheses, the data of the government expenditure on education, gender inequality in education, gender education development index, openness, GDP per capita and dummy variable for democracy among the selected MENA countries are used in a panel data model for the 1990-2010 period. The results show that, an increase in government expenditure has a significant positive impact on the gender development index in education. Therefore, the situation for women is improved with an increase in government expenditure on education. When public spending increases, men than women will get more educational opportunities. In this case, women gender inequality in education is decreased, which means higher gender inequality in education