titles for essays about gender inequality

143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples

Here, you will find 85 thought-provoking topics relating to gender, equality, and discrimination. Browse through our list to find inspiration for your paper – and don’t forget to read the gender inequality essay samples written by other students.

👩 Top 10 Gender Equality Title Ideas

🏆 best gender bias essay topics, 💡 interesting topics to write about gender inequality, 📌 simple & easy gender inequality essay titles, 👍 good gender equality research title ideas, ❓ gender inequality research questions.

• Globalization, gender, and development.
• The Pink Tax.
• Women and unpaid labor.
• Gender stereotypes in media.
• Emma Watson’s speech on gender equality.
• A critique of HeForShe campaign.
• Education for girls in Ghana.
• The suffrage movement.
• Crimes against girls and women.
• Female empowerment in STEM fields.
• Gender Inequality in the Field of Working Wright and Yaeger state that it is the deep intersection of the life and work fields in the current working paradigm that creates daily and long-term problems, limits the available time for male and female […]
• Gender Inequality in the Story of Ama Aidoo “In the Cutting of a Drink” The story of Ama Aidoo In the Cutting of a Drink tells about gender inequality, which is expressed in the clash between the typical values of rural residents and the values of people living in […]
• Gender Inequality: The Role of Media The media plays a major role in gender socialization because of the ways it chooses to portray women. Shows such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Snow White are famous because they usher children […]
• Gender Inequality as a Global Issue This essay will examine some of the causes that affect the gap in the treatment of men and women, and its ramifications, particularly regarding developing countries.
• Gender Inequality and Female Leaders in the Hospitality Industry The current literature regarding the challenges and issues facing women in leadership positions in the hospitality industry in France is inadequate.
• Sociological perspectives of Gender Inequality The events taking place in the modern world and the occurrence of the feminist movements during the past few decades can be used to offer a deeper understanding on the subject of gender inequality and […]
• Women’s Rights and Gender Inequality in Saudi Arabia Indeed, it is crucial to understand the importance of women’s rights, see the connections between the past, the present, the local, and the global, and realize how political and media discourse represents the social issue […]
• Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective It is the duty of the tutor to craft a lecture-room environment that serves to enhance meaningful discussions concerning gender. This is due to the fact that students learn best in various ways.
• Gender Inequality in Social Media Research shows that teenagers from the age of thirteen use social media to discuss the physical appearances of girls and exchange images with sexual content.
• Gender Inequality in the Labor Force The aim of this article is to assess the assertion that gender inequality exists in the labor force. The table below shows global adult employment-to-population by gender for 1998 and 2008.
• Femicide in Mexico and the Problem of Gender Inequality Femicide remains one of the most devastating issues in Mexico, and it is vital to address the gender oppression and inequality that women face.
• Gender Inequality, Violence Against Women, and Fear in The Sopranos Thus, the major research question will be “Does The Sopranos endorse or criticize VaW through the frequent depiction of the scenes of cruelty?” The hypothesis of the research paper will be “The portrayal of VaW […]
• How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World? According Ridgeway, it may not be correct per se to say that its only women who are aggrieved by the gender imbalance but majority of the cases that depict gender inequalities involve women on the […]
• Gender inequality in Canada According to, although it is certain that men and women have actual differences particularly physically, most of the social indifference perception are not because of the biological connotation but because of the over time cultural […]
• Gender Inequality in the Video Games Industry The portrayal of males and females in video games is a subject of study in gender studies and is discussed in the context of sexism in the industry.
• Combating Gender Inequality It is thanks to this approach that humanity will be able to successfully cope with the problem of gender inequality, sexism, and discrimination.
• Gender Inequality: On the Influence of Culture and Religion Therefore, to understand more about the topic, it is essential to study the issues from various perspectives and find the connection of the discourse to other gender-related problems and theories.
• Gender Inequality as a Global Societal Problem For eliminating the gender wage gap, nationwide legislation shows to increase the hiring and promotion of women in the workplace. Unfortunately, there is a gap in scholarly research in regards to reflecting the success of […]
• Gender Inequality in Workplace Gender is the main reason for inequalities in the workplace; this is because nowadays there is a steady increase in the number of women in workplaces in the world.
• The Issue of Gender Inequality Reflection Unfortunately, in the opinion of many, inequality in their treatment is even more pronounced, forming a third group from such persons in addition to binary people and positioning them at the end of the list.
• Gender Inequality in Mass Media However, as a part of society, media organizations are influenced by the same social aspects and biased conclusions as the rest of the community. As a result, the owners and managers of media are mainly […]
• Gender Inequality in American Stories and Plays There are disputes about the sexual desire of men and women and how it is applied, and the use of physical strength of men on women.
• Gender Inequality and Female Empowerment Promotion Therefore, it is crucial to continue celebrating women’s accomplishments and encourage a positive change within the current perception of women as a social and biological class.
• Gender Inequality in Interdisciplinary Lenses Both sociologists and legal experts concur that a gender bias ingrained in society is the primary factor contributing to the issue of women in the workforce.
• Gender Inequality at Work in Developed Countries In France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Great Britain, men are disadvantaged throughout the employment process for professions where women predominate. These are the conclusions of a study conducted by the University of Amsterdam, the University […]
• Gender Inequality and Its Causes Analysis It is evident that the difference is so insignificant to the point where some women can be athletically stronger than men, and there is a vast difference in strength among men themselves.
• Gender Inequality and the Glass Ceiling The significant societal barriers that keep women from achieving the highest levels of their careers include, but are not limited to, organizational barriers, societal barriers, and Personal barriers.
• Human Objectification as a Tool of Gender Inequality Objectification and culture of suppressed emotions of the male gender lead to the further sexual objectification of the females resulting in unequal social positions.
• The Issue of Gender Inequality After Covid-19 To date, the role of women in society has increased many times over, both in the economic, social, and political spheres of public life.
• Gender Inequality in the Construction Field It is important that the main actors in the sector understand that gender equality can help reduce the issue of shortage of skill that exists in that field.
• Social Enterprises and Gender Inequality in Dubai In the context of UAE demographics, the population of Dubai has been rightfully considered the most diverse in terms of age, income, and socio-ethnic background, as this city is a conglomerate for tourists, business visitors, […]
• Gender Inequality in Relation to the Military Service In his article, Soutik Biswas refers to the intention of India’s Supreme Court to influence the government and give women commanding roles in the army.
• The Relationship Between Gender Inequality and Women’s Economic Independence In a scenario where the wife is employed, either of the parents has the means of supporting themselves as well as other dependents, and this is the most remarkable benefit of emancipation.
• Gender Inequality and Its Implications on American Society It is not just the fight for the women’s rights, elimination of the gender pay gap or the harassment phenomenon. The voices of those who disagree with the fact that the resolution of one case […]
• Women From the Downtown Eastside: Gender Inequality One of the main questions that bother many people around the whole world is the identification of the conditions under which the citizens of the Downtown Eastside disappeared.
• Women Labour: Gender Inequality Issues Sexual category or gender is an ingredient of the wider socio-cultural framework that encompasses the societal attributes and opportunities connected with individual male and female and the conduit between women and men and girls and […]
• Issues Surrounding Gender Inequality in the Workplace The main objective of the constructionist point of view is that it is aimed at uncovering how the individuals and the groups tend to participate in the creation of their perceptions of gender and women […]
• Public Policy Analysis on Gender Inequality in Education in South Sudan The major challenges related to the development of the educational system are the ongoing violent attacks and natural disasters. The General Education Strategic Plan, 2017-2022 is the government’s response to the most burning issues in […]
• Race & Gender Inequality and Economic Empowerment This means that the study will analyze the problem of race and gender inequality and examine how it is related to poverty.
• Gender Inequality: “Caliban and the Witch” by Federici Federici shows the fall of female ability for autonomy and the rise of patriarchal societies as a result of an emerging emphasis on global trade and the perceived notion that the wealth of the country […]
• Gender Inequality and Health Disparities Thus, Wacquant not only mentions the problem of gender inequality but also stresses that this issue has a rather long history of development, which is rooted in the past.
• Gender Inequality Index 2013 in the Gulf Countries However, the ratio of women in the parliament is noticeably lower, and that explains why the GII of Kuwait is slightly higher than the one of the UEA.
• Gender Inequality: Reginald Murphy College To establish the accuracy of the allegations raised as a group, the factors to ensuring the retrieval of the correct information about the issue in question are the involvement of all members of the administration […]
• Gender Inequality at the China’s Workplaces Although researchers have quantified the extent of gender pay inequality in the workplace, they hold different opinions regarding the best strategies to use in addressing the problem.
• Gender Inequality and Its Historical Origin Seeing that the effects of the two factors are reciprocal, it can be assumed that, though both have had a tangible impact on the contemporary representation of women in the society, traditions have a significantly […]
• Gender Inequality in Family Business One of the problems that every woman faces in a family business is that of succession. In the model of Royal Families, the right to lead the business belongs to the oldest son.
• Gender Inequality in Europe, America, Asia, Africa The laws and customs of the countries located in Africa and the Middle East are shaped by many factors. Some of the laws in the Middle East are clearly unfair towards women.
• Women in the Workplace: Gender Inequality I examine the idea of work-and-life balance that is proposed as a solution to the problem of having a family and career at the same time and point out the fact that it is typically […]
• Indian Gender Inequality and Reduction Initiatives Coontz discusses these issues from the context of the economic status of American women and their limited role in society at the time.
• Bill Myers’ Leadership and Gender Inequality In this case, the bartenders, wait staff and the busboys all possess the required skills and knowledge for the job, and thus ought to be treated equally.
• Gender Inequality in Afghanistan Thirdly, there is social gender inequality, which is demonstrated by women being the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, inequalities in education attainment, lack of freedom to marry and divorce, and unequal access to […]
• Gender Inequality and Socio-Economic Development Gender inequality in the US determines who is to be in the kitchen and who is to sit in the White House.
• Gender Inequality in America This event highlighted the extent to which women were vulnerable to the prejudices of the society. This particular event is important because it lead to the exclusion of women from the political life of the […]
• Gender inequality in Algeria The fact that women helped to build back the ruins of society and the heroism they showed in the war efforts, was forgotten by their husbands and the government.
• Gender Inequality in the US Of more importance in the enhancement of gender inequality is the role of the media. The natural constrains described above and the multiplier effects from the historical insubordination of women still play to men’s favor […]
• Observations on the Gender Inequality This is the best way to preserve the stability and order in a gendered society, although the young woman in the street cannot accept this order of things.
• The Effects of International Trade on Gender Inequality: Women Carpet Weavers of Iran
• The Prevailing Gender Inequality in USA
• Perspectives On Gender Inequality And The Barrier Of Culture On Education
• Race, Ethnicity and Gender Inequality in the Rwanda Genocide
• The Scarcity Of Water And Its Effect On Gender Inequality
• Unequal Division Of Economic Growth And Gender Inequality
• The Measurement of Multidimensional Gender Inequality
• The Growing Issue of Gender Inequality in the Workplace
• Understanding Gender Inequality in Employment and Retirement
• The Violation of Women and the Practice of Gender Inequality Through Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
• The Different Elements That Affect Gender Inequality in Society
• How Gender Inequality Is Defined As The Unequal Treatment
• The Controversial Issue of Gender Inequality in the Twentieth Century
• The Correlation between Poverty and Gender Inequality
• The Problem of Gender Inequality in the United States and Its Negative Impact on American Society
• National Culture, Gender Inequality and Women’s Success in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
• The Institutional Basis of Gender Inequality: The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)
• The Issue of Gender Stereotypes and Its Contribution to Gender Inequality in the Second Presidential Debate
• Women´s Right Movement: Gender Inequality
• International Relations: Gender Inequality Issues
• Problems of Gender Inequality for Women in India and Other
• The Role of Women Discrimination and Gender Inequality in Development: The Cross-Section Analysis by Different Income Groups
• The Effect of Gender Inequality on Economic Development: Case of African Countries
• The Role of Historical Resource Constraints in Modern Gender Inequality: A Cross-Country Analysis
• The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender Inequality and Fiscal Spending
• Identity, Society, and Gender Inequality of Women in North West India
• How Debates of Gender Inequality and Gender Roles are Conflicted With Family Structures
• The Features of the Problem of Gender Inequality in the World
• Untapped Potential in the Study of Negotiation and Gender Inequality in Organizations
• The Impact of the Sectoral Allocation of Foreign aid on Gender Inequality
• The Impact Of Gender Inequality On Employee Satisfaction
• The Issue of Gender Inequality Between the North and South in the United States
• The Problem of Gender Inequality in South Asia and Its Effects on Girls and Women in Society
• Whether Patriarchy Is The Leading Cause Of Gender Inequality
• The Issues of Gender Inequality in the Book a Woman on the Edge
• Women Deserve For A Girl : A Real Issue Of Gender Inequality
• The Main Causes And Consequences Of Gender Inequality
• The Experience of Gender Inequality in The Awakening, a Novel by Kate Chopin
• The Issues of Gender Inequality in the Political Landscape Despite the Legal and Theoretical Attempts to Overcome the Gender Gap
• Measuring Key Disparities in Human Development: The Gender Inequality Index
• The Relationship of the Cultural and Historical Specificity of Gender Inequality in Mitchell’s Not Enough of the Past
• Stange Journeys and Gender Inequality in Pullman and Dangarembga
• Help or Hindrance? Religion’s Impact on Gender Inequality in Attitudes and Outcomes
• Should Women Continue Fighting Against Gender Inequality
• Women ‘s Gender Inequality By Chinua Achebe ‘s Things Fall Apart
• Legislation and Labour Market Gender Inequality: An Analysis of OECD Countries
• What Are the Types of Gender Inequality?
• Does Gender Inequality Hinder Development and Economic Growth?
• What Does Gender Inequality Mean?
• Does Trade Liberalization Help to Reduce Gender Inequality?
• What are the main issues of gender inequality?
• How Has Gender Inequality Impacted Contemporary Catholicism?
• What Determines Gender Inequality in Household Food Security in Kenya?
• Who Is Affected by Gender Inequality?
• What Causes Gender Inequality?
• Where Is Gender Inequality Most Common?
• What Are the Effects of Gender Equality?
• How Can We Stop Gender Inequality?
• What Is an Example of Gender Equality?
• Does Gender Inequality Still Exist Today?
• What Is the Impact of Gender Inequality in the Society?
• When Did Gender Inequality Become an Issue?
• What Are the Three Main Areas of Gender Inequality in the World?
• How Does Gender Inequality Affect Development?
• What Is the Difference Between Gender Equity, Gender Equality, and Women’s Empowerment?
• Why Is Gender Equality Important?
• Is Gender Equality a Concern for Men?
• What Are the Manifestations of Gender Inequality in the Modern Society?
• Is Gender Inequality Still a Pending and Pressing Issue in the Modern World?
• What Are the Causes and Effects of Gender Inequality in the European Society?
• Can Gender Inequality Issues Be a Boost for Women’s Progress, Development, and Improvement in the Workplace?
• What Are the Future Consequences and Outcomes of the Present-Day Gender Inequality?
• Where Does Gender Inequality Step From?
• Is It Possible at All to Achieve Gender Equality?
• What Is Gender Blindness and How Does It Impact the Overall Concept of Gender Inequality?
• Is Education a Solution to Solve Inequality Between the Sexes?
• Gender Roles Paper Topics
• Demography Paper Topics
• Family Relationships Research Ideas
• Women’s Rights Titles
• Personal Identity Paper Topics
• Women’s Role Essay Topics
• Workplace Discrimination Research Topics
• Feminism Questions
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 26). 143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/gender-inequality-essay-topics/

"143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples." IvyPanda , 26 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/gender-inequality-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples'. 26 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/gender-inequality-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/gender-inequality-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "143 Unique Gender Inequality Essay Titles & Examples." February 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/gender-inequality-essay-topics/.

Gender Inequality - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender, manifesting in various areas like the workplace, political representation, and societal norms. Essays on gender inequality could explore historical and contemporary instances, the social and economic implications, and the intersectionality of gender with other forms of discrimination. Furthermore, discussions might cover ongoing efforts to combat gender inequality and promote inclusivity. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of Gender Inequality you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Gender Inequality and Feminism

Gender inequality is a concept which has been occurring over a number of years and due to gender differences it fuels up gender inequality, which gave rise to gender socialization. Gender socialization is the process of learning gender roles which emerge from society and nowadays social media, throughout this process men and women learn their roles in society. The most common attribute we ascribe to women is that they can be vulnerable and sensitive, on the other hand, men hear […]

Crime and Social Justice on Gender Inequality

I'm using these five sources to talk about crime and social justice on gender inequality. Gender inequality is more of a social injustice because gender inequality is an unfair practice between men and women being carried out in the society. Within discussing this topic, I talk about racism and sexism. My topic is towards African Americans and women in the workplace. How come African American women or women, in general, are not seen as an equal to men? Cheeks, Maura. […]

The Gender Gap in Political Ambition

The gender gap in political ambition has been a topic extensively researched by political analysts and professors for years. The focus of this essay will be to examine why this gender gap exists and how it directly affects the underrepresentation of women who hold public office in the United States. This essay will explore the ways in which young women are politically socialized and factors in early childhood through high school which affect one’s political motivations. This research also seeks […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Sexual Harassment in the Work Place and Gender Inequality

Abbas, in "All Males Are the Same: Exploring Workplace Harassment of Female Employees," addresses the issue of workplace sexual harassment towards females, which is common in many countries, specifically the Middle East. The article explores how workplace sexual harassment towards women contributes to the cause of gender inequality. Abbas supports his claim with numerous case studies. First, his findings suggest that workplace harassment is a universal problem embedded within societal traditions. Second, he examines how the unequal treatment of women […]

The Issue of Gender Inequality Within Society

According to the International Labour Organization, “equality in pay has improved in the US since 1979 when women earned about 62% as much as men. In 2010, American women on average earned 81% of what their male counterparts earned. Women’s participation in the U.S. labor force climbed during the 1970s and 1980s, reaching 60 percent in 2000. However, in 2010 this figure has declined to 46.7 percent and is not expected to increase by 2018.” (“Gender Inequality and Women in […]

“Education is the Passport to the Future”

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” Malcolm X. It can be said that education helps us increase knowledge to actively achieve and meet challenges that can produce changes in which are productive for attaining business innovations, political and economic objectives. In sociological terms education is usually seen as the process of acquiring certain skills or knowledge within an institution designed for that purpose. According (Haralambos & Holborn, 2004), it […]

Gender Inequality in Broadcast Journalism

The news media is one of thea most powerful institution whichs that exerts a tremendous amount of influence on society. Although more women females are entering the male dominated newsroom, women are still underrepresented and excluded in many differentmultiple ways. It is evident that females hold a strong interest in journalism; in fact, sixty- five percent of journalism school graduates are female However, women only represent thirty percent of jobs in journalism. , Tand this gender disparity is evident in […]

Gender Inequality in the Workplace

Gender inequality in the workplace has been an ongoing issue for decades now. Men and women have never been on the same page when it comes to work. Women have always been known to be more of caregivers and men have been given the tougher tasks. Gender stereotypes have always played a major role in assigning women to lower paying and lower status jobs in comparison to men. Discrimination against women can occur in many ways throughout the workplace, such […]

Sappho and Catullus Romantic Rejection

Although Sappho and Catullus lived and worked in different time periods, their ideas on romantic rejection suggest each were victims of unrequited love. Both wrote about their cultural environment of where they lived, their ideas of society, its expectations and inequalities for both women and men as well as their different representations of love. They used their poetry to discuss the gender inequality of their societies and how unfair a society led by men really was in. It dictated the […]

Gender Inequality in the Medical Field

Introduction The medical field is consistently one of the best job fields to enter because of the positive job outlook and high salary. This may not be true for women, however. The large amount of gender discrimination and harassment may be enough to keep women away from the medical field, specifically female doctors. In this day and age there is no reason why women cannot become doctors and they are not lesser than their male peers, especially in the 21st […]

Gender Inequality in Education

Culturally, there is a belief that every individual has the same chance to succeed in society. Even in our constitution, it states that all men are created equal. What is underlying in this belief is that a failure to succeed is the fault of the gender or race of the individual. Inequalities in educational institutions affect students in various ways; providing greater impact on children from lower socio-economic backgrounds and maintaining advantages of those with money, which are then passed […]

Feminism Within the Film Industry

The film industry has had a recurring theme with its woman in film. The theme began as a woman playing a secondary role to males and playing the victim that needs rescuing. The rise of feminism began in the 1950s until the 1970s, at first it was unpopular with the audience and did not make its return until the 1990s. Throughout the years it is shown that woman has become more dominant in their roles as the main matriarch of […]

Gender Inequality in China

"Mao Zedong once said, “women hold up half the sky.” This famous quote has been interpreted by people for nearly one-hundred years. All interpretations tying back to one basic core idea that women hold just as much priority in the world as men do. However, in present-day China, social standards are far from equal between the two genders. Men still earn more money than their female counterparts, the gender ratio of the country is still out of balance, and boys […]

Gender Inequality: Causes and Impacts

Gender Equality is “A state of having same rights, status and opportunities like others, regardless of one’s gender.” Gender inequality is “unequal treatment or perception of an individual based on their gender.” In the United States of America Gender Equality has progressed through the past decades. Due to different Cultural context, countries around the world lack Gender Equality. Gender inequality remains a issue worldwide, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. Equality of Gender is normalized in the United […]

Gender Inequality Affects Everyone

Gender inequality has never been a new thing in the United States. This cultural phenomenon has deeply rooted in people’s minds and has been affecting their behaviors for a really long time. Gender inequality generally defines as that men and women in some way are not equal. Gender inequality recognizes gender inequality and gender influences an individual’s life experience. These differences stem from the distinctions in biology, psychology, and cultural norms. Some of these differences are based on experience, while […]

Research Paper on Gender Inequality in the Workforce in India

Abstract India demonstrates significant economy growth that contrary to universal norms results in lower female labor force participation. The issue is a deep-rooted problem, which is aggravated by a wide range of factors, the major of which are social norms and insufficient level of training and information on job opportunities. Despite the presence of these constraints, the paper suggests that there is a scope of possible measures, which can be implemented by the government to overcome the problem and mitigate […]

The Gender Wage Gap: Myth or Reality?

Gender inequality has been a persistent issue in the workforce. The gender wage gaps shows the difference between male and female workers’ earnings. In the modern day economy, women are typically paid less than men. The Equal Pay Act was passed in the U.S. on June 10, 1963, it was the beginning of achieving equal economic opportunity for women however, it alone did not solve the issue. In further effort to put an end to the century-old gender wage inequality, […]

Gender Inequality is Still a Huge Issue

Throughout history, men have always been perceived as the dominant gender compared to women. Up until recently, men were the ones going to work while the women stayed home. They did not have hardly any rights, while having to stay home to handle raising the children and keeping up with household chores. Not only that, but women also got constantly abused by their husbands while they got away with it. While in today’s society, things have changed drastically, gender inequality […]

Gender Inequality and Sexual Harassment

Attitudes regarding men’s violence against women shape gender inequality and also the sense of responses to this violence by the victim and others around. This is why we see many violence prevention campaigns media advertisements and social awareness. Attitudes and behaviors shape violence in several domains including culture, gender, institutional response to violence, women’s own responses to victimization and more. Gender role attitudes and their forced upholding play a major role regarding violence towards women [1]. From a young age, […]

Gender Inequality in the United States for Years

Gender inequality has been present in the United States for years. Women have been, and still are, mainly associated with the duties tied to their home. However, the role as the “homemaker” have limitations on women, causing them to experience dissatisfaction in their lives. Women are increasingly pushing against that stereotype, as shown by the increasing number of women, especially married women, that are joining the workforce. This allows women to steer away from being economically dependent on men, and […]

“Gender Inequality: a Greek Life and Legal Implications Study”

Abstract Attending college is supposed to be a time of newfound freedom. This freedom gives incoming students the opportunity to define who they are as a person, and often times the organizations students first join play a vital role in shaping who they are for years to come. When graduates reflect on their college years many say their best memories come from the organizations they joined. At Texas Christian University over half of the student population are in different Greek […]

How Gender Discrimination Effects Children

"It is during their first years that girls and boys learn gendered attitudes and expectations - from parents, caregivers, other family members, and teachers - about how girls and boys/women and men should behave, their social worth and what their role is in society." (e.g. Plan International) Gender inequality is an issue for all of us, but we often don't think about how it affects children. In recent decades, there have been elaborate studies on how sexism and gender stereotyping […]

Gender Inequality in Athletic Sports

Sports are both one of the most idolized and contested activities in our society today. Historically, sports have been used as a display for the public, for both entertainment and social purposes. Sports also provide professional opportunities for athletes and coaches at the highest level of performance. Regardless of the purpose or presentation, sports have created an element in our modern society. While sports have provided opportunities, it has also created underlying effects on social cues in regards to the […]

How to Deal with Gender Inequality in Sports

Looking at today’s fast world, sports has turned out to be a place where individuals can have extraordinary professions in and will likewise have the wages that one can get by owning a business as well, but the posing problem is that it is gender driven. Societal norms have a significant impact on a youth’s life, one of the fields in which it lays impact is sports. The major contributing factor is that since birth, humans observe and learn these […]

An Issue of Gender Inequality in the World

Gender inequality is still an issue in the world. In every five girls, one will not have access to an education. Girls in developing countries are not enrolled in school. Mexico has been dealing with gender inequality for years because women aren’t given the same rights as men. In Mexico, gender stereotypes and discrimination restrict women’s choices. Mexico falls in the bottom half of 144 countries when it comes to gender equality. Women were murdered just because of their gender […]

Gender Inequality and Violence in the United States

Gender inequality in the United States has been an issue since before our time with women and girls making strides since the early 1900’s to gain gender equity. Gender inequality is looked at as a key factor that underpins violence against women, why men produce certain acts of violence over woman and why men are looked at different by society than women, however the topic is complex and requires consideration from different perspectives, including ways to deter the violence. Most […]

Americanah: Gender Pay Gap in Nigeria and North America

In the book Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie, women's earning potentials are vividly shown based on experiences that Ifemelu and her Aunty Uju have in both Nigeria and North America. These earning potentials affect gender roles and expectations in Nigeria and North America because women are expected more to be the house keepers and mothers rather than ever having a job themselves. Nowadays it is much different as the feminist movement continues to grow across the world. This is presented throughout […]

The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries

In today’s world, gender equality is seen as a crucial need. According to the U.N., “1 in 5 women and girls between the ages of 15-49 have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner within a 12-month period”. In developed countries, tremendous efforts have been made in order to achieve the goal of gender equality as now in 46 countries, “women now hold more than 30 percent of seats in national parliament in at least one chamber.” […]

An Analysis of the Problem of Gender Inequality

Furthermore, in nations like Yemen, sex variations are seen even in optional school where young men select at a rate 20 rate focuses higher than young ladies. On the off chance that fairness is educated in schools it will change the general public and how individuals think and act bringing about more ladies learning and graduating. As what the speakers have mentioned, gender inequality should be fought by both men and women. It is humans right. Gender inequality has greatly […]

Gender Inequality in Saudi Arabia

Gender inequality has been a major factor for many countries and as every single one of them continue to change and improve for the future, some places have stayed the same over time and are barely coming along and accepting what other areas have already passed on such as having equality not just for men, but for women as well and many of us today don’t realize how some people are not given the freedom to do what we do […]

Related topic

Additional example essays.

• Religion’s Role in Gender Equality
• The Gender Pay Gap and the Equality
• About Gender Discrimination in Sports
• The Oppression And Privilege
• Discrimination in Workplace
• Why Abortion Should be Illegal
• Death Penalty Should be Abolished
• Logical Fallacies in Letter From Birmingham Jail
• How the Roles of Women and Men Were Portrayed in "A Doll's House"
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
• Substance Abuse and Mental Illnesses
• Med school personal statement

How To Write an Essay About Gender Inequality

Understanding gender inequality: the foundation.

To write an essay on gender inequality, it's crucial to start with a clear understanding of what gender inequality entails. It's a broad term that refers to the unequal treatment or perception of individuals based on their gender. Gender inequality manifests in various aspects of life, including but not limited to the workplace, education, politics, and social norms. Begin your essay by defining gender inequality, providing relevant examples from different areas of life, and explaining why it is a significant issue that warrants attention.

Research and Statistics: Building Your Argument

A well-researched essay is a powerful tool. Accumulate data and statistics from credible sources such as academic journals, international organizations (like the UN or WHO), and reputable news outlets. This research should include global perspectives, highlighting how gender inequality varies across different cultures and societies. Use this information to construct a strong argument, supporting your points with evidence. This approach not only adds weight to your essay but also demonstrates a thorough understanding of the topic.

The Historical Perspective: Understanding the Roots

Incorporate a historical perspective to provide depth to your essay. Understanding the historical context of gender inequality helps to explain how and why it persists today. This can include an examination of gender roles throughout history, major movements for gender equality, and significant legal and social changes. A historical lens allows for a comprehensive view of the problem and its evolution over time.

Current Challenges and Debates

Focus on the current state of gender inequality. This section should explore the most pressing issues and debates surrounding gender inequality today. Topics can include the gender pay gap, underrepresentation in leadership positions, societal expectations, and the impact of gender stereotypes. This section can also cover the intersectionality of gender inequality, showing how it intersects with other forms of discrimination like race, class, and sexuality.

Solutions and Actions: Towards a More Equal Future

Every essay should look towards the future. Discuss potential solutions and actions that could be taken to address gender inequality. These can range from policy changes and educational reforms to shifts in cultural attitudes and individual actions. Highlight initiatives already in place that are working towards equality and suggest areas where more work is needed. This section should inspire and suggest practical ways for individuals and societies to contribute to a more gender-equal world.

Conclusion: Summarizing Key Points

Conclude your essay by summarizing the key points discussed. Reiterate the importance of addressing gender inequality and the impact it has on individuals and society as a whole. Your conclusion should leave readers with a clear understanding of the issue, its significance, and a sense of hope or urgency for the future. Remember, a strong conclusion can leave a lasting impression on your readers, motivating them to think more deeply about the subject or even take action.

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

70 Argumentative Essay Topics About Gender Equality

Gender equality is an extremely debatable topic. Sooner or later, every group of friends, colleagues, or classmates will touch on this subject. Discussions never stop, and this topic is always relevant.

This is not surprising, as our society hasn’t reached 100% equality yet. Pay gaps, victimization, abortion laws, and other aspects remain painful for millions of women. You should always be ready to structure your thoughts and defend your point of view on this subject. Why not practice with our list of essay topics about gender equality?

Our cheap essay writing service authors prepared 70 original ideas for you. Besides, at the end of our article, you’ll find a list of inspirational sources for your essay.

Argumentative Essay Topics About Gender Equality

• Does society or a person define gender?
• Can culturally sanctioned gender roles hurt adolescents’ mental health?
• Who or what defines the concepts of “masculinity” and “femininity” in modern society?
• Should the rules of etiquette be changed because they’ve been created in the epoch of total patriarchy?
• Why is gender equality higher in developed countries? Is equality the cause or the result of the development?
• Are gender stereotypes based on the difference between men’s and women’s brains justified?
• Would humanity be more developed today if gender stereotypes never exited?
• Can a woman be a good politician? Why or why not?
• What are the main arguments of antifeminists? Are they justified?
• Would our society be better if more women were in power?

Analytical Gender Equality Topics

• How do gender stereotypes in the sports industry influence the careers of athletes?
• Social and psychological foundations of feminism in modern Iranian society: Describe women’s rights movements in Iran and changes in women’s rights.
• Describe the place of women in today’s sports and how this situation looked a hundred years ago.
• What changes have American women made in the social and economic sphere? Describe the creation of a legislative framework for women’s empowerment.
• How can young people fix gender equality issues?
• Why do marketing specialists keep taking advantage of gender stereotypes in advertising?
• How does gender inequality hinder our society from progress?
• What social problems does gender inequality cause?
• How does gender inequality influence the self-image of male adolescents?
• Why is the concept of feminism frequently interpreted negatively?

Argumentative Essay Topics About Gender Equality in Art and Literature

• Theory of gender in literature: do male and female authors see the world differently? Pick one book and analyze it in the context of gender.
• Compare and contrast how gender inequality is described in L. Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” and G. Flaubert’s novel “Madame Bovary.” Read and analyze the mentioned books, distinguish how gender inequality is described, and how the main characters manage this inequality.
• The artificial gender equality and class inequality in the novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.
• Do modern romance novels for teenagers help to break gender stereotypes, or do they enforce them?
• Gender equality changes through Disney animation films. Analyze the scenarios of Disney animation films from the very beginning. Describe how the overall mood in relation to female characters and their roles has changed.
• Henrik Ibsen touched on the topic of gender inequality in his play “A Doll’s House.” Why was it shocking for a 19th century audience?
• Concepts of gender inequality through examples of fairy tales. Analyze several fairy tales that contain female characters. What image do they have? Do these fairy tales misrepresent the nature of women? How do fairy tales spoil the world view of young girls?
• Why do female heroes rarely appear in superhero movies?
• Heroines of the movie “Hidden Figures” face both gender and racial inequalities. In your opinion, has the American society solved these issues entirely?
• The problem of gender inequality in the novel “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker.

Gender Equality Essay Ideas: Workplace and Employment

• Dress code in the workplace: Does it help to solve the problem of gender inequality, or is it a detriment?
• What kind of jobs are traditionally associated with men and women? How have these associations changed in the last 50 years?
• The pay gap between men and women: is it real?
• How can HR managers overcome gender stereotypes while hiring a new specialist?
• Analyze the concepts of “glass ceiling” and “glass elevator.” Do these phenomena still exist in our society?

Essay Topics About Gender Equality: Religion

• Gender aspects of Christian virtue and purity in the Bible.
• What does the equality of men and women look like from the perspective of Christianity? Can a woman be a pastor?
• Orthodox Judaism: Women and the transformation of their roles in a religious institute. Describe the change in women’s roles in modern Judaism.
• How can secularism help solve the problem of gender inequality in religious societies?
• Is the problem of gender inequality more serious in religious societies?

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics About Gender Equality

• Compare and contrast the problems men and women experience in managerial positions.
• Compare and contrast what progress has been made on gender equality in the USA and Sweden.
• Compare and contrast the social status of women in ancient Athens and Sparta.
• Conduct a sociological analysis of gender asymmetry in various languages. Compare and contrast the ways of assigning gender in two different languages.
• Compare and contrast the portrayal of female characters in 1960s Hollywood films and in modern cinematography (pick two movies). What has changed?

Gender Equality Topics: Definitions

• Define the term “misandry.” What is the difference between feminism and misandry?
• Define the term “feminology.” How do feminologists help to break down prejudice about the gender role of women?
• Define the term “catcalling.” How is catcalling related to the issue of gender inequality?
• Define the term “femvertising.” How does this advertising phenomenon contribute to the resolution of the gender inequality issue?
• Define the term “misogyny.” What is the difference between “misogyny” and “sexism”?

Gender Equality Essay Ideas: History

• The roles of the mother and father through history.
• Define the most influential event in the history of the feminist movement.
• What ancient societies preached matriarchy?
• How did World War II change the attitude toward women in society?
• Woman and society in the philosophy of feminism of the second wave. Think on works of Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan and define what ideas provoked the second wave.

Essay Topics About Gender Equality in Education

• How do gender stereotypes influence the choice of major among high school students?
• Discuss the problems of female education in the interpretation of Mary Wollstonecraft. Reflect on the thoughts of Mary Wollstonecraft on gender equality and why women should be treated equally to men.
• Self-determination of women in professions: Modern contradictions. Describe the character of a woman’s self-determination as a professional in today’s society.
• Should gender and racial equality be taught in elementary school?
• Will sex education at schools contribute to the development of gender equality?

Gender Equality Topics: Sex and Childbirth

• Sexual violence in conflict situations: The problem of victimization of women.
• The portrayal of menstruation and childbirth in media: Now versus twenty years ago.
• How will the resolution of the gender inequality issue decrease the rate of sexual abuse toward women?
• The attitude toward menstruation in different societies and how it influences the issue of gender equality.
• How does the advertising of sexual character aggravate the problem of gender inequality?
• Should advertising that uses sexual allusion be regulated by the government?
• How has the appearance of various affordable birth control methods contributed to the establishment of gender equality in modern society?
• Do men have the right to give up their parental duties if women refuse to have an abortion?
• Can the child be raised without the influence of gender stereotypes in modern society?
• Did the sexual revolution in the 1960s help the feminist movement?

How do you like our gender equality topics? We’ve tried to make them special for you. When you pick one of these topics, you should start your research. We recommend you to check the books we’ve listed below.

Non-Fiction Books and Articles on Gender Equality Topics

• Beecher, C. “The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women.”
• Connell, R. (2011). “Confronting Equality: Gender, Knowledge and Global Change.”
• Doris H. Gray. (2013). “Beyond Feminism and Islamism: Gender and Equality in North Africa.”
• Inglehart Ronald, Norris Pippa. (2003). “Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World.”
• Mary Ann Danowitz Sagaria. (2007). “Women, Universities, and Change: Gender Equality in the European Union and the United States (Issues in Higher Education).”
• Merrill, R. (1997). “Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality.”
• Mir-Hosseini, Z. (2013). “Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Process.”
• Raymond F. Gregory. (2003). “Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality.”
• Rubery, J., & Koukiadaki, A. (2016). “Closing the Gender Pay Gap: A Review of the Issues, Policy Mechanisms and International Evidence.”
• Sharma, A. (2016). “Managing Diversity and Equality in the Workplace.”
• Sika, N. (2011). “The Millennium Development Goals: Prospects for Gender Equality in the Arab World.”
• Stamarski, C. S., & Son Hing, L. S. (2015). “Gender Inequalities in the Workplace: The Effects of Organizational Structures, Processes, Practices, and Decision Makers’ Sexism.”
• Verniers, C., & Vala, J. (2018). “Justifying Gender Discrimination in the Workplace: The Mediating Role of Motherhood Myths.”
• Williams, C. L., & Dellinger, K. (2010). “Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace.”

Literary Works for Your Gender Equality Essay Ideas

• “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen
• “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf
• “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
• “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
• “ The Awakening” by Kate Chopin
• “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker
• “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
• “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett
• “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir

We’re sure that with all of these argumentative essay topics about gender equality and useful sources, you’ll get a good grade without much effort! If you have any difficulties with your homework, request “ write my essay for cheap ” help and  our expert writers are always ready to help you.

Our cheap essay writing service has one of the lowest pricing policies on the market. Fill in the ordering form, and we guarantee that you’ll get a cheap, plagiarism-free sample as soon as possible!

~ out of 10 - average quality score

~ writers active

5 Powerful Essays Advocating for Gender Equality

Gender equality – which becomes reality when all genders are treated fairly and allowed equal opportunities –  is a complicated human rights issue for every country in the world. Recent statistics are sobering. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity . The biggest gaps are found in political empowerment and economics. Also, there are currently just six countries that give women and men equal legal work rights. Generally, women are only given ¾ of the rights given to men. To learn more about how gender equality is measured, how it affects both women and men, and what can be done, here are five essays making a fair point.

Take a free course on Gender Equality offered by top universities!

“Countries With Less Gender Equity Have More Women In STEM — Huh?” – Adam Mastroianni and Dakota McCoy

This essay from two Harvard PhD candidates (Mastroianni in psychology and McCoy in biology) takes a closer look at a recent study that showed that in countries with lower gender equity, more women are in STEM. The study’s researchers suggested that this is because women are actually especially interested in STEM fields, and because they are given more choice in Western countries, they go with different careers. Mastroianni and McCoy disagree.

They argue the research actually shows that cultural attitudes and discrimination are impacting women’s interests, and that bias and discrimination is present even in countries with better gender equality. The problem may lie in the Gender Gap Index (GGI), which tracks factors like wage disparity and government representation. To learn why there’s more women in STEM from countries with less gender equality, a more nuanced and complex approach is needed.

“Men’s health is better, too, in countries with more gender equality” – Liz Plank

When it comes to discussions about gender equality, it isn’t uncommon for someone in the room to say, “What about the men?” Achieving gender equality has been difficult because of the underlying belief that giving women more rights and freedom somehow takes rights away from men. The reality, however, is that gender equality is good for everyone. In Liz Plank’s essay, which is an adaption from her book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, she explores how in Iceland, the #1 ranked country for gender equality, men live longer. Plank lays out the research for why this is, revealing that men who hold “traditional” ideas about masculinity are more likely to die by suicide and suffer worse health. Anxiety about being the only financial provider plays a big role in this, so in countries where women are allowed education and equal earning power, men don’t shoulder the burden alone.

Liz Plank is an author and award-winning journalist with Vox, where she works as a senior producer and political correspondent. In 2015, Forbes named her one of their “30 Under 30” in the Media category. She’s focused on feminist issues throughout her career.

“China’s #MeToo Moment” –  Jiayang Fan

Some of the most visible examples of gender inequality and discrimination comes from “Me Too” stories. Women are coming forward in huge numbers relating how they’ve been harassed and abused by men who have power over them. Most of the time, established systems protect these men from accountability. In this article from Jiayang Fan, a New Yorker staff writer, we get a look at what’s happening in China.

The essay opens with a story from a PhD student inspired by the United States’ Me Too movement to open up about her experience with an academic adviser. Her story led to more accusations against the adviser, and he was eventually dismissed. This is a rare victory, because as Fan says, China employs a more rigid system of patriarchy and hierarchy. There aren’t clear definitions or laws surrounding sexual harassment. Activists are charting unfamiliar territory, which this essay explores.

“Men built this system. No wonder gender equality remains as far off as ever.” – Ellie Mae O’Hagan

Freelance journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan (whose book The New Normal is scheduled for a May 2020 release) is discouraged that gender equality is so many years away. She argues that it’s because the global system of power at its core is broken.  Even when women are in power, which is proportionally rare on a global scale, they deal with a system built by the patriarchy. O’Hagan’s essay lays out ideas for how to fix what’s fundamentally flawed, so gender equality can become a reality.

Ideas include investing in welfare; reducing gender-based violence (which is mostly men committing violence against women); and strengthening trade unions and improving work conditions. With a system that’s not designed to put women down, the world can finally achieve gender equality.

“Invisibility of Race in Gender Pay Gap Discussions” – Bonnie Chu

The gender pay gap has been a pressing issue for many years in the United States, but most discussions miss the factor of race. In this concise essay, Senior Contributor Bonnie Chu examines the reality, writing that within the gender pay gap, there’s other gaps when it comes to black, Native American, and Latina women. Asian-American women, on the other hand, are paid 85 cents for every dollar. This data is extremely important and should be present in discussions about the gender pay gap. It reminds us that when it comes to gender equality, there’s other factors at play, like racism.

Bonnie Chu is a gender equality advocate and a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur. She’s the founder and CEO of Lensational, which empowers women through photography, and the Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy.

You may also like

16 Inspiring Civil Rights Leaders You Should Know

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Housing Rights

15 Examples of Gender Inequality in Everyday Life

11 Approaches to Alleviate World Hunger 

15 Facts About Malala Yousafzai

12 Ways Poverty Affects Society

15 Great Charities to Donate to in 2024

15 Quotes Exposing Injustice in Society

14 Trusted Charities Helping Civilians in Palestine

The Great Migration: History, Causes and Facts

Social Change 101: Meaning, Examples, Learning Opportunities

Rosa Parks: Biography, Quotes, Impact

About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Essays About Gender Inequality: Top 5 Examples and 8 Helpful Prompts

Essays about gender inequality discuss a timely subject. Discover our guide with examples and prompts to assist you in writing.

Gender inequality is a global issue where one person’s perception and treatment of others depend on predetermined social expectations, leading to discrimination. Children can learn negative stereotypes, live with these biases, and carry them into adulthood. Parents who teach their kids prejudice are one of the reasons for gender inequality that spills into everyone else’s lives. 

Organizations like UNICEF actively form partnerships worldwide to stop and promote gender equality . Their efforts include career support, higher quality maternal care, skills development, and more. Your gender inequality essay can help promote gender equality that prevents violence against all genders. In addition, by discussing the topic, more people can better understand the seriousness of the issue. Check out our round-up of the best essay writing apps to get started!

5 Essay Examples 

1. gender inequality: sources and consequences by anonymous on edubirdie.com, 2. the issue of gender inequality in the media in america by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. gender inequality is a huge issue from past by joshua blake, 4. the problem of gender inequality in the workplace by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 5. gender inequality: are there any positive changes by anonymous on eduzaurus.com, 1. gender inequality: defined, 2. impact of gender inequality, 3. fighting gender inequality, 4. types and causes of gender inequality, 5. gender inequality as a global problem, 6. politics and gender inequality, 7. who are the most affected by gender inequality, 8. gender inequality and family dynamics.

“Humanity requires both men and women to move forward together, and they both are equally important. There are no reasons why women should be seen as the “weaker” sex.”

The author firmly believes that people must control old habits and notions about genders for everyone’s sake. This essay further delves into how culture and history devalue ​​women and prove that men are more powerful as they bring money and do more physical work. The media also assists in making viewers think women are sexual objects, with how most magazines and promotions cater to men’s satisfaction.

The writer understands that gender inequality is impossible to fix immediately. So they recommend parents teach their children to avoid stereotyping. Companies should also ensure equal treatment for both genders when providing job opportunities. They also mention that more influential people will speak about the problem as the unjust treatment continues.

“There is no doubt that every form of media today will have some sort of gender stereotypes and generalizations about male and female roles.”

In this gender inequality essay, the writer explains not only what stereotypes are but also how the media harms the lives of young men and women when these labels are reinforced. This includes the stereotype of being a housewife, the most common stereotype.

The writer describes how the media is at fault for promoting a negative body image. When mainstream channels portray the “perfect” male or female body, and viewers see that they are far from what those ideal types look like, it can lead to physical and mental health problems. 

“It is certain that gender inequality is a huge issue from the past to present especially [as it] occurs among women.”

To identify the causes of gender inequality, Blake uses various studies to prove that Hofstede and Schwartz’s framework on the cultural dimension influences the differences between men and women.

A good example is Schwartz’s hierarchy and Hofstede’s power distance, which both refer to unequal power distribution and sources. Some dimensions are very similar and correspond to each other, such as masculinity and mastery, femininity and harmony, autonomy and individualism, conservatism, and collectivism.

“Both genders can have the same education and experience, yet the male gets a higher wage payment compared to female.”

In discussing the topic, the author uses various statistical data to prove that gender inequality in the workplace is still present today but is improving. For example, according to their findings, American men earn one dollar while women earn only 89 cents. 

Americans are also against the women who return to work after giving birth and say men shall continue without paternity leave. But ultimately, the writer believes that when there’s gender inequality in a company, they lose the opportunity to keep their best resources.

“Gender inequality can be defined as not giving equal opportunities to people because of their biological sex.”

The essay mentions how TV shows and personalities like Emma Watson , who speak their minds on how the media portrays genders, help shed more light on gender inequality. Therefore, they encourage others to become a part of something revolutionary. However, it also shows little change in gender differences after more people became aware of the situation. The piece also notes how today’s parents are raising their children, allowing them to eliminate gender-based oppression.

8 Prompts for Essays About Gender Inequality

Explain to your readers the main topic and how inequality occurs in modern society. Give an example of gender inequality that is very common and how both sexes react to it. Conclude your essay with recommendations on how these issues can be resolved and avoided.

In reality, gender inequality has negative impacts on everyone. Discuss how this problem takes away opportunities, develops destructive behaviors, and puts people in dangerous situations. Offer real-life examples, surveys, and data to support your claims to make the essay more informative and credible.

Gender inequality has been a prevalent issue since the beginning of time and is still a pressing matter today. Use this prompt to identify and discuss steps governments, organizations, schools, churches, parents, and individuals should take to avoid being gender biased. 

Share ways to promote gender equality through simple tasks like sharing household chores between housemates, no matter the gender, calling out sexist jokes, and learning more about the topic.

To make your essay more effective, incorporate convincing and powerful writing. Read our guide on persuasive writing to know more.

Talk about the various types of gender inequality, such as gender discrimination in education, sexual violence, unequal pay and recognition, racism, and ownership inequality. Add their causes and roots. 

It’s best if you can interview someone who experiences this imbalance. Let them relay what they felt and why they think it happened. Include other examples to allow your readers to visualize and understand the situations.

Do thorough research and find survey data showing the number of people who are still victims of gender inequality. Look for the best and most reliable source and check how it differs from one location to the other. Discuss your findings and share your opinion on what contributes to this discrimination.

Use this prompt if you want to tackle fundamental problems related to gender inequality. Discuss how women and men are treated in politics and give examples of situations that demonstrate it. The more famous the incidents are, the better. You can also compare if there’s a relevant difference between how female and male politicians lead.

Although all are affected by this bias, who are the most prone to it? Search for applicable data from reputable sources to determine and expound on the number of people involved. Include how these people are influenced and why.

Gender inequality also occurs in wealthy families or nobility, where whoever is in charge of a business or place needs power and the ability to dominate others. Search for countries and cultures that still follow a patriarchal structure. Add your opinion on whether it’s time to modify these structures or its best to keep them as is for traditions’ sake.

If you’re still stuck, maybe this topic is not for you. Check out our general resource of essay writing topics.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

View all posts

• Dissertation
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Book Report/Review
• Research Proposal
• Math Problems
• Proofreading
• Movie Review
• Cover Letter Writing
• Personal Statement
• Nursing Paper
• Argumentative Essay
• Research Paper
• Discussion Board Post

TOP 100 Gender Equality Essay Topics

Table of Contents

Need ideas for argumentative essay on gender inequality? We’ve got a bunch!

… But let’s start off with a brief intro.

What is gender equality?

Equality between the sexes is a huge part of basic human rights. It means that men and women have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential in all spheres of life.

Today, we still face inequality issues as there is a persistent gap in access to opportunities for men and women.

Women have less access to decision-making and higher education. They constantly face obstacles at the workplace and have greater safety risks. Maintaining equal rights for both sexes is critical for meeting a wide range of goals in global development.

Inequality between the sexes is an interesting area to study so high school, college, and university students are often assigned to write essays on gender topics.

In this article, we are going to discuss the key peculiarities of gender equality essay. Besides, we have created a list of the best essay topic ideas.

What is the specifics of gender equality essay?

Equality and inequality between the sexes are important historical and current social issues which impact the way students and their families live. They are common topics for college papers in psychology, sociology, gender studies.

When writing an essay on equality between the sexes, you need to argue for a strong point of view and support your argument with relevant evidence gathered from multiple sources.

But first, you’d need to choose a good topic which is neither too broad nor too narrow to research.

Research is crucial for the success of your essay because you should develop a strong argument based on an in-depth study of various scholarly sources.

Equality between sexes is a complex problem. You have to consider different aspects and controversial points of view on specific issues, show your ability to think critically, develop a strong thesis statement, and build a logical argument, which can make a great impression on your audience.

If you are looking for interesting gender equality essay topics, here you will find a great list of 100 topic ideas for writing essays and research papers on gender issues in contemporary society.

Should you find that some topics are too broad, feel free to narrow them down.

Powerful gender equality essay topics

Here are the top 25 hottest topics for your argumentative opinion paper on gender issues.

Whether you are searching for original creative ideas for gender equality in sports essay or need inspiration for gender equality in education essay, we’ve got you covered.

Use imagination and creativity to demonstrate your approach.

• Analyze gender-based violence in different countries
• Compare wage gap between the sexes in different countries
• Explain the purpose of gender mainstreaming
• Implications of sex differences in the human brain
• How can we teach boys and girls that they have equal rights?
• Discuss gender-neutral management practices
• Promotion of equal opportunities for men and women in sports
• What does it mean to be transgender?
• Discuss the empowerment of women
• Why is gender-blindness a problem for women?
• Why are girls at greater risk of sexual violence and exploitation?
• Women as victims of human trafficking
• Analyze the glass ceiling in management
• Impact of ideology in determining relations between sexes
• Obstacles that prevent girls from getting quality education in African countries
• Why are so few women in STEM?
• Major challenges women face at the workplace
• How do women in sport fight for equality?
• Women, sports, and media institutions
• Contribution of women in the development of the world economy
• Role of gender diversity in innovation and scientific discovery
• What can be done to make cities safer for women and girls?
• International trends in women’s empowerment
• Role of schools in teaching children behaviours considered appropriate for their sex
• Feminism on social relations uniting women and men as groups

Gender roles essay topics

We can measure the equality of men and women by looking at how both sexes are represented in a range of different roles. You don’t have to do extensive and tiresome research to come up with gender roles essay topics, as we have already done it for you.

Have a look at this short list of top-notch topic ideas .

• Are paternity and maternity leaves equally important for babies?
• Imagine women-dominated society and describe it
• Sex roles in contemporary western societies
• Compare theories of gender development
• Adoption of sex-role stereotyped behaviours
• What steps should be taken to achieve gender-parity in parenting?
• What is gender identity?
• Emotional differences between men and women
• Issues modern feminism faces
• Sexual orientation and gender identity
• Benefits of investing in girls’ education
• Patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes in family relationships
• Toys and games of girls and boys
• Roles of men and women in politics
• Compare career opportunities for both sexes in the military
• Women in the US military
• Academic careers and sex equity
• Should men play larger roles in childcare?
• Impact of an ageing population on women’s economic welfare
• Historical determinants of contemporary differences in sex roles
• Gender-related issues in gaming
• Culture and sex-role stereotypes in advertisements
• What are feminine traits?
• Sex role theory in sociology
• Causes of sex differences and similarities in behaviour

Gender inequality research paper topics

Examples of inequality can be found in the everyday life of different women in many countries across the globe. Our gender inequality research paper topics are devoted to different issues that display discrimination of women throughout the world.

Choose any topic you like, research it, brainstorm ideas, and create a detailed gender inequality essay outline before you start working on your first draft.

Start off with making a debatable thesis, then write an engaging introduction, convincing main body, and strong conclusion for gender inequality essay .

• Aspects of sex discrimination
• Main indications of inequality between the sexes
• Causes of sex discrimination
• Inferior role of women in the relationships
• Sex differences in education
• Can education solve issues of inequality between the sexes?
• Impact of discrimination on early childhood development
• Why do women have limited professional opportunities in sports?
• Gender discrimination in sports
• Lack of women having leadership roles
• Inequality between the sexes in work-family balance
• Top factors that impact inequality at a workplace
• What can governments do to close the gender gap at work?
• Sex discrimination in human resource processes and practices
• Gender inequality in work organizations
• Factors causing inequality between men and women in developing countries
• Work-home conflict as a symptom of inequality between men and women
• Why are mothers less wealthy than women without children?
• Forms of sex discrimination in a contemporary society
• Sex discrimination in the classroom
• Justification of inequality in American history
• Origins of sex discrimination
• Motherhood and segregation in labour markets
• Sex discrimination in marriage
• Can technology reduce sex discrimination?

Most controversial gender topics

Need a good controversial topic for gender stereotypes essay? Here are some popular debatable topics concerning various gender problems people face nowadays.

They are discussed in scientific studies, newspaper articles, and social media posts. If you choose any of them, you will need to perform in-depth research to prepare an impressive piece of writing.

• How do gender misconceptions impact behaviour?
• Most common outdated sex-role stereotypes
• How does gay marriage influence straight marriage?
• Explain the role of sexuality in sex-role stereotyping
• Role of media in breaking sex-role stereotypes
• Discuss the dual approach to equality between men and women
• Are women better than men or are they equal?
• Sex-role stereotypes at a workplace
• Racial variations in gender-related attitudes
• Role of feminism in creating the alternative culture for women
• Feminism and transgender theory
• Gender stereotypes in science and education
• Are sex roles important for society?
• Future of gender norms
• How can we make a better world for women?
• Are men the weaker sex?
• Beauty pageants and women’s empowerment
• Are women better communicators?
• What are the origins of sexual orientation?
• Should prostitution be legal?
• Pros and cons of being a feminist
• Advantages and disadvantages of being a woman
• Can movies defy gender stereotypes?
• Sexuality and politics

Feel free to use these powerful topic ideas for writing a good college-level gender equality essay or as a starting point for your study.

No time to do decent research and write your top-notch paper? No big deal! Choose any topic from our list and let a pro write the essay for you!

Writing a Good Tornado Research Paper

Thoughts on writing abortion persuasive essay.

How to Write a Presidential Speech?

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Social Inequality — Gender Inequality

Essays on Gender Inequality

Gender inequality essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: unveiling gender inequality: root causes, impact, and paths to equality.

Thesis Statement: This essay delves into the multifaceted issue of gender inequality, examining its underlying causes, its pervasive impact on society, and the strategies and movements aimed at achieving gender equality and justice.

• Introduction
• Understanding Gender Inequality: Social Constructs, Stereotypes, and Bias
• Economic Disparities: Gender Wage Gap, Occupational Segregation, and Glass Ceilings
• Education and Empowerment: Gender Disparities in Access and Opportunities
• Violence Against Women: Domestic Violence, Harassment, and Human Rights Violations
• Global Perspectives: Gender Inequality in Different Cultural and Geographical Contexts
• The Role of Advocacy: Movements, Legislation, and Progress Towards Equality
• Conclusion: The Ongoing Struggle for Gender Equality

Essay Title 2: Intersectionality and Gender Inequality: Examining the Overlapping Forms of Discrimination

Thesis Statement: This essay explores the concept of intersectionality within the context of gender inequality, analyzing how overlapping factors such as race, class, sexuality, and disability intersect with gender to create unique experiences of discrimination and privilege.

• Intersectionality Defined: Interplay of Identity, Power, and Discrimination
• Race and Gender: The Experiences of Women of Color
• Socioeconomic Factors: Poverty, Wealth, and Economic Disparities
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: LGBTQ+ Issues and Discrimination
• Disability and Gender: Challenges Faced by Disabled Women
• Intersectionality in Action: Real-Life Examples and Case Studies
• Empowerment and Solidarity: Intersectional Feminism and Social Change
• Conclusion: Embracing Intersectionality in the Fight Against Gender Inequality

Essay Title 3: Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women's Leadership and Gender Equality in the Corporate World

Thesis Statement: This essay focuses on women's leadership in the corporate world, examining the challenges and barriers they face in reaching leadership positions, the importance of diversity in leadership, and the potential for change in the business sphere.

• The Gender Leadership Gap: Statistics and Trends in Corporate Leadership
• Barriers to Women's Advancement: Stereotypes, Bias, and Family-Work Balance
• The Business Case for Gender Diversity: Benefits to Companies and Economies
• Women Breaking Barriers: Success Stories and Female Role Models in Business
• Initiatives for Change: Corporate Policies, Mentorship Programs, and Gender Parity Goals
• The Future of Women in Leadership: Prospects for Gender Equality in the Corporate World
• Conclusion: Advancing Women's Leadership for a More Inclusive Future

Sexism in Chase and Sanborn Advertising

Gender inequality in the great gatsby, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Curley's Wife American Dream Analysis

The problem of gender inequality in the workplace, the issue of gender inequality in the media in america, the national organization for women struggling with gender inequality going on in the workplace, schools, and home, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Gender Inequality and Women in The Workplace

Gender inequality: causes and solutions, the influence of social norms on gender inequality, the effects of gender inequality on society and the economy, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

The Issue of Gender Equality in Workplace

Gender inequality in the film industry, sexism and gender inequality in the workplace in the us, the experience of gender inequality in the awakening, a novel by kate chopin, the impact of gender on income inequality, the necessity of feminism in a patriarchal society: death of a salesman, sociological perspectives of sexual orientation and inequality, systemic discrimination against women firefighters, the effect of a double glass ceiling on minority women, the problem of gender inequality in sports, gender equality as a matter of social justice, impact of experience and education on womens wages, the role of social stratification in inequality within the education system, the problem of a lack of female leaders, why gender equality is still not achieved, it wasn't hysteria; it was institutionalized sexism, gender equality and its effect on advertisement and fashion photography, the issue of gender equality: a review of literature, jo goodwin parker's discussion of poverty and feminization, social injustice issue: transgenders and restrooms, relevant topics.

• Gender Equality
• Gender Wage Gap
• Pro Choice (Abortion)
• Gun Control
• Women's Rights
• Animal Testing
• Women's Suffrage
• Assisted Suicide

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

101 Gender Issues Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on gender issues, 👍 good gender issues research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting gender issues research titles, 💡 simple gender issues essay ideas, ❓ research question on gender issues.

• Gender Inequality Issue and Solutions
• Gender Discrimination Issues and Interventions
• The Issue of Gender-Separated Sports
• Single Parenthood Households and Gender-Related Issues
• Modern Issues of Gender Studies
• Addressing the Issue of Gender Equality
• Gender Issues in the Leadership of the Organization
• “Raise the Red Lantern”: Gender Roles and Hierarchy Issues The “Raise the Red Lantern” portrays life as a series of performative gestures under the pressure of cultural traditions, appointed gender roles, and hierarchical power structures.
• Role of Mass Media in Gender Issues This paper discusses the role of mass media in the presentation of gender and examines standards from various media sources to demonstrate how some news stories develop.
• The Issue of Gender Discrimination Related to Business and Society In this paper, the issue of gender discrimination will be analyzed based on how the deteriorated relationships taking root from societal issues affect all sides of the conflict.
• Issues of Sex and Gender in Society Today All issues related to gender have been rather acute and debated since early times. One can deftly manipulate people for the sake of one’s benefit.
• Human Rights and Gender Issues: “The Love Suicides at Amijima” & “Tale of Kieu” Comparing “The Love Suicides at Amijima” and “Tale of Kieu”, while representing different time periods, addresses the same problem of human rights and gender inequalities.
• Social Experiment: Informal Norms of Gender Issues The social experiment presents a contradiction between the socially-accepted norms and the understanding of equality between men and women.
• Gender Inequality as an International Issue The presentation is devoted to an issue: gender inequality. The inequality in career progression that is still characteristic of several societies all over the world.
• Gender Discrimination as an Ethical Issue Society is related to discrimination, inequality, and ethical injustice due to the increasing rates of incompetence incidence based on racial, gender, or ethnic affiliation.
• The Issue of Transgender Discrimination Despite numerous attempts to eliminate biased attitude, transgender people still face different challenges that deteriorate results of treatment.
• Gender as a Social Construct and Related Issues Through various cultural norms society helps its members form a gender identity. This paper aims to discuss how gender issues impact people’s identities and lives.
• Issues Associated With Gender and Incarceration The paper addresses issues related to gender and incarceration in the United States. Every person in state custody needs to be treated with decency and respect.
• The Issue of Gender Inequality in Kenya Kenya is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with oppressive conditions, most preferably the gender inequality and marginalization of a specific proportion of the populace.
• Issues of Female Gender in Modern World Literature studies may be utilized to access the vast amount of human experience on gender issues in order to raise awareness among individuals.
• The Inclusivity of Language: Gender Issues The singular ‘they’ can be used to replace the generic appropriately ‘he’ for gender neutrality fulfilment. It is essential as it makes language more inclusive in terms of gender.
• “Gender Wage Gap”: The Pay Disparity Issue The article debates the pay contrast issue, whereby in the past women were allowed to work in service and clerical careers only, thus they could not support themselves financially.
• Culture as a Key Point to the Gender Issue Gender is based on social and cultural expectations rather than on physical traits. Thus, culture is the key point to the gender issue.
• Gender Issues in the Us Correctional System This paper aims to explore gender-specific issues in corrections and determine how updating the current policies would benefit the system.
• Racial and Gender Issues in Modern Society Most members of racial or sexual minorities experience hostility in their daily lives, which increases unity within their social group and a sense of identification.
• Sociological Issues About Social Class and Poverty, Race and Ethnicity, Gender The aim of this paper is to describe different sociological issues in the USA, such as social class and poverty, race and ethnicity, gender, etc.
• Conflict and Order Theory on Race and Gender Issues In a U.S. context, exclusive English-language education is frequently criticized as putting the children of immigrants at a disadvantage and undermining their cultural identity.
• Transnationalism Issues: Migration and Gender Kobayashi and Preston’s work looks more scientific than Charsley’s which seems more subjective. Nevertheless, the issue of transnationalism has been examined.
• The Issue of Gender Pay Discrimination in Canada The essay examines the phenomenon of gender pay discrimination in the Canadian workforce and the globalism of the issue.
• Issues in Sports: Gender Equality Numerous societies have not recognized that women have the flair to take part in any sport that a man can do, with equivalent expertise if not best.
• Misconceptions of Gender and Migration Issues The paper analyzes the articles “Misconceptions of Gender: Sex, Masculinity, and the Measurement of Crime” and “Migration and social mobility” on social problems of minorities.
• Gender Issues and the U.S. Constitutional Law: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes et al. Dismissing the claim of the plaintiff and ruling in favor of Wal-Mart, Inc., the Supreme Court enforced the definition of a group that a class action suit is supposed to represent as a homogenous concept.
• Gender Pay Gap as a Serious Social Issue The purpose of current research is to analyse people’s awareness of and attitudes toward the issue of the gender pay gap.
• Issue of Gender Discrimination in Different Societies It is necessary to show in mass media that discrimination occurs regardless of the gender and should be approached as a detrimental phenomenon without dividing men and women.
• Gender Bias Issues: Types of Gender Bias in the Workplace and Their Impact on Productivity Issues of gender bias have been identified as critical in organizational theory and behavior. Today there are more calls for equal treatment of both men and women in organizations.
• Gender, Race and Sexuality Issues in Society Gender is understood in broader terms in the sense that inferior races are believed to be more feminine while the perceived superior races are masculine.
• Gender Inequalities: “Past” Issues and Future Possibilities
• Contemporary Workplace and the Importance of Equity and Gender Issues
• Gender Issues: Have Women’s Rights Improved?
• Revisiting Labor and Gender Issues in Export Processing Zones
• Gender Issues About Negotiation: A Different Perception of the Most Important Driving Forces
• Integrating Gender Issues Into National Budgetary Policies and Procedures
• Gender Issues: What Causes an Individual to Undergo Surgeries to Change His or Her Gender?
• New Times for Women and Gender Issues in Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Justice
• Gender Issues and Representations of Identity in Three Music Videos by Madonna
• How Gender Issues Explored in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”
• What Are the Psychological Effects of Gender Issues?
• Gender Issues and Leadership Effectiveness in Nigeria Labor Union Activities
• How Things Can Be for Women: Gender Issues in “Trifles”
• Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects
• Nineteenth-Century Race and Gender Issues in the US
• Gender Issues and Women’s Participation in Irrigated Agriculture
• Understanding Gender Issues in Nigeria: The Imperative for Sustainable Development
• Gender Issues, Education, and the Economy in the Arab States
• Human Rights Advocacy on Gender Issues: Challenges and Opportunities
• Gender Issues and Barriers in Chinese Business
• Class and Gender Issues in Medieval Europe
• Social Activities and Public Judgment on Gender Issues
• Gender Issues and Sexuality in Marge Piercy’s “Sex Wars”
• Connecting Gender Issues With Past and Present
• How Gender Issues Affect Income in Public Relations
• Language, Process, and Gender Issues in Advertising Composition
• Social, Cultural, and Gender Issues in the Identification of Gifted Students
• Gender Issues: Big Boys Don’t Cry
• How Media Presents Gender and Gender Issues
• The Changing Social Concept of Gender Issues and Roles
• Women and Gender Issues of Americans in Combat
• Taking Action Against Prevalent Gender Issues
• Culture, Ethnicity, and Gender Issues Within Psychology
• Equality With Men: Issues of Gender Fairness
• Racism and Gender Issues in the Artworks of Renee Cox
• Identifying and Addressing Gender Issues in Doing Business
• Gender Issues Revealed Through the Literature
• The Role of Sport in Addressing Gender Issues
• Background, Assessment, and Analysis of the Gender Issues in Pakistan
• Feminism and Gender Issues During 1950-1960
• What Are Gender Issues in Communication?
• How Do Post-war Countries Continue Face Gender Issues?
• What Are the Effects of Gender Issues?
• How Do You Deal With Gender Issues?
• Why Is It Important to Understand Gender Issues?
• What Are the Emerging Gender Issues in School?
• How Can We Fight Gender Issues in the Workplace?
• What Is the Significance of the Gender Issue Development?
• Why Is It Hard to Discuss Gender Issues?
• Can We Solve the Gender Issues Today?
• What Are the Major Gender Issues?
• Why Is It Important to Understand Gender-Related Issues in the Workplace?
• Are There Gender Issues in Education?
• What Is the Importance of Gender Issues in Our Society?
• Is It Important to Talk About Gender Issues?
• What Is the Concept of Gender Issues?
• How Do Gender Issues Affect Society?
• What Are the Solutions to Gender Issues?
• How Does “Snow White” Show Gender Issus?
• What Do Gender Issues Look Like Today?
• How Have Gender Issues Changed From the 19th Century to the Present Day?
• What Are the Common Gender Issues in the Philippines?
• How Are Gender Issues Presented in “Jane Eyre”?
• What Are the Causes of Gender Issues?
• How Do Gender Issues Affect the Business?

Cite this post

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2022, June 5). 101 Gender Issues Essay Topics. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/gender-issues-essay-topics/

"101 Gender Issues Essay Topics." StudyCorgi , 5 June 2022, studycorgi.com/ideas/gender-issues-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . (2022) '101 Gender Issues Essay Topics'. 5 June.

1. StudyCorgi . "101 Gender Issues Essay Topics." June 5, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/gender-issues-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "101 Gender Issues Essay Topics." June 5, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/gender-issues-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2022. "101 Gender Issues Essay Topics." June 5, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/gender-issues-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Gender Issues were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on December 27, 2023 .

Gender Inequality Essay

500+ words essay on gender inequality.

For many years, the dominant gender has been men while women were the minority. It was mostly because men earned the money and women looked after the house and children. Similarly, they didn’t have any rights as well. However, as time passed by, things started changing slowly. Nonetheless, they are far from perfect. Gender inequality remains a serious issue in today’s time. Thus, this gender inequality essay will highlight its impact and how we can fight against it.

  About Gender Inequality Essay

Gender inequality refers to the unequal and biased treatment of individuals on the basis of their gender. This inequality happens because of socially constructed gender roles. It happens when an individual of a specific gender is given different or disadvantageous treatment in comparison to a person of the other gender in the same circumstance.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Impact of Gender Inequality

The biggest problem we’re facing is that a lot of people still see gender inequality as a women’s issue. However, by gender, we refer to all genders including male, female, transgender and others.

When we empower all genders especially the marginalized ones, they can lead their lives freely. Moreover, gender inequality results in not letting people speak their minds. Ultimately, it hampers their future and compromises it.

History is proof that fighting gender inequality has resulted in stable and safe societies. Due to gender inequality, we have a gender pay gap. Similarly, it also exposes certain genders to violence and discrimination.

In addition, they also get objectified and receive socioeconomic inequality. All of this ultimately results in severe anxiety, depression and even low self-esteem. Therefore, we must all recognize that gender inequality harms genders of all kinds. We must work collectively to stop these long-lasting consequences and this gender inequality essay will tell you how.

How to Fight Gender Inequality

Gender inequality is an old-age issue that won’t resolve within a few days. Similarly, achieving the goal of equality is also not going to be an easy one. We must start by breaking it down and allow it time to go away.

Firstly, we must focus on eradicating this problem through education. In other words, we must teach our young ones to counter gender stereotypes from their childhood.

Similarly, it is essential to ensure that they hold on to the very same beliefs till they turn old. We must show them how sports are not gender-biased.

Further, we must promote equality in the fields of labour. For instance, some people believe that women cannot do certain jobs like men. However, that is not the case. We can also get celebrities on board to promote and implant the idea of equality in people’s brains.

All in all, humanity needs men and women to continue. Thus, inequality will get us nowhere. To conclude the gender inequality essay, we need to get rid of the old-age traditions and mentality. We must teach everyone, especially the boys all about equality and respect. It requires quite a lot of work but it is possible. We can work together and achieve equal respect and opportunities for all genders alike.

FAQ of Gender Inequality Essay

Question 1: What is gender inequality?

Answer 1: Gender inequality refers to the unequal and biased treatment of individuals on the basis of their gender. This inequality happens because of socially constructed gender roles. It happens when an individual of a specific gender is given different or disadvantageous treatment in comparison to a person of the other gender in the same circumstance.

Question 2: How does gender inequality impact us?

Answer 2:  The gender inequality essay tells us that gender inequality impacts us badly. It takes away opportunities from deserving people. Moreover, it results in discriminatory behaviour towards people of a certain gender. Finally, it also puts people of a certain gender in dangerous situations.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Paola belingheri.

1 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Filippo Chiarello

Andrea fronzetti colladon.

2 Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

3 Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

Paola Rovelli

4 Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

Compensation

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

Funding Statement

P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

Data Availability

Advertisement

Gender inequality as a barrier to economic growth: a review of the theoretical literature

• Open access
• Published: 15 January 2021
• Volume 19 , pages 581–614, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Manuel Santos Silva 1 &
• Stephan Klasen 1  

54k Accesses

28 Citations

24 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

In this article, we survey the theoretical literature investigating the role of gender inequality in economic development. The vast majority of theories reviewed argue that gender inequality is a barrier to development, particularly over the long run. Among the many plausible mechanisms through which inequality between men and women affects the aggregate economy, the role of women for fertility decisions and human capital investments is particularly emphasized in the literature. Yet, we believe the body of theories could be expanded in several directions.

Similar content being viewed by others

Gender Inequality and Growth in Europe

The effect of gender inequality on economic development: case of african countries.

The Feminization U

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Theories of long-run economic development have increasingly relied on two central forces: population growth and human capital accumulation. Both forces depend on decisions made primarily within households: population growth is partially determined by households’ fertility choices (e.g., Becker & Barro 1988 ), while human capital accumulation is partially dependent on parental investments in child education and health (e.g., Lucas 1988 ).

In an earlier survey of the literature linking family decisions to economic growth, Grimm ( 2003 ) laments that “[m]ost models ignore the two-sex issue. Parents are modeled as a fictive asexual human being” (p. 154). Footnote 1 Since then, however, economists are increasingly recognizing that gender plays a fundamental role in how households reproduce and care for their children. As a result, many models of economic growth are now populated with men and women. The “fictive asexual human being” is a dying species. In this article, we survey this rich new landscape in theoretical macroeconomics, reviewing, in particular, micro-founded theories where gender inequality affects economic development.

For the purpose of this survey, gender inequality is defined as any exogenously imposed difference between male and female economic agents that, by shaping their behavior, has implications for aggregate economic growth. In practice, gender inequality is typically modeled as differences between men and women in endowments, constraints, or preferences.

Many articles review the literature on gender inequality and economic growth. Footnote 2 Typically, both the theoretical and empirical literature are discussed, but, in almost all cases, the vast empirical literature receives most of the attention. In addition, some of the surveys examine both sides of the two-way relationship between gender inequality and economic growth: gender equality as a cause of economic growth and economic growth as a cause of gender equality. As a result, most surveys end up only scratching the surface of each of these distinct strands of literature.

There is, by now, a large and insightful body of micro-founded theories exploring how gender equality affects economic growth. In our view, these theories merit a separate review. Moreover, they have not received sufficient attention in empirical work, which has largely developed independently (see also Cuberes & Teignier 2014 ). By reviewing the theoretical literature, we hope to motivate empirical researchers in finding new ways of putting these theories to test. In doing so, our work complements several existing surveys. Doepke & Tertilt ( 2016 ) review the theoretical literature that incorporates families in macroeconomic models, without focusing exclusively on models that include gender inequality, as we do. Greenwood, Guner and Vandenbroucke ( 2017 ), in turn, review the theoretical literature from the opposite direction; they study how macroeconomic models can explain changes in family outcomes. Doepke, Tertilt and Voena ( 2012 ) survey the political economy of women’s rights, but without focusing explicitly on their impact on economic development.

To be precise, the scope of this survey consists of micro-founded macroeconomic models where gender inequality (in endowments, constraints, preferences) affects economic growth—either by influencing the economy’s growth rate or shaping the transition paths between multiple income equilibria. As a result, this survey does not cover several upstream fields of partial-equilibrium micro models, where gender inequality affects several intermediate growth-related outcomes, such as labor supply, education, health. Additionally, by focusing on micro-founded macro models, we do not review studies in heterodox macroeconomics, including the feminist economics tradition using structuralist, demand-driven models. For recent overviews of this literature, see Kabeer ( 2016 ) and Seguino ( 2013 , 2020 ). Overall, we find very little dialogue between the neoclassical and feminist heterodox literatures. In this review, we will show that actually these two traditions have several points of contact and reach similar conclusions in many areas, albeit following distinct intellectual routes.

Although the incorporation of gender in macroeconomic models of economic growth is a recent development, the main gendered ingredients of those models are not new. They were developed in at least two strands of literature. First, since the 1960s, “new home economics” has applied the analytical toolbox of rational choice theory to decisions being made within the boundaries of the family (see, e.g., Becker 1960 , 1981 ). Footnote 3 A second literature strand, mostly based on empirical work at the micro level in developing countries, described clear patterns of gender-specific behavior within households that differed across regions of the developing world (see, e.g., Boserup 1970 ). Footnote 4 As we shall see, most of the (micro-founded) macroeconomic models reviewed in this article use several analytical mechanisms from "new home economics”; these mechanisms can typically rationalize several of the gender-specific regularities observed in early studies of developing countries. The growth theorist is then left to explore the aggregate implications for economic development.

The first models we present focus on gender discrimination in (or on access to) the labor market as a distortionary tax on talent. If talent is randomly distributed in the population, men and women are imperfect substitutes in aggregate production, and, as a consequence, gender inequality (as long as determined by non-market processes) will misallocate talent and lower incentives for female human capital formation. These theories do not rely on typical household functions such as reproduction and childrearing. Therefore, in these models, individuals are not organized into households. We review this literature in section 2 .

From there, we proceed to theories where the household is the unit of analysis. In sections 3 and 4 , we cover models that take the household as given and avoid marriage markets or other household formation institutions. This is a world where marriage (or cohabitation) is universal, consensual, and monogamous; families are nuclear, and spouses are matched randomly. The first articles in this tradition model the household as a unitary entity with joint preferences and interests, and with an efficient and centralized decision making process. Footnote 5 These theories posit how men and women specialize into different activities and how parents interact with their children. Section 3 reviews these theories. Over time, the literature has incorporated intra-household dynamics. Now, family members are allowed to have different preferences and interests; they bargain, either cooperatively or not, over family decisions. Now, the theorist recognizes power asymmetries between family members and analyzes how spouses bargain over decisions. Footnote 6 These articles are surveyed in section 4 .

The final set of articles we survey take into account how households are formed. These theories show how gender inequality can influence economic growth and long-run development through marriage market institutions and family formation patterns. Among other topics, this literature has studied ages at first marriage, relative supply of potential partners, monogamy and polygyny, arranged and consensual marriages, and divorce risk. Upon marriage, these models assume different bargaining processes between the spouses, or even unitary households, but they all recognize, in one way or another, that marriage, labor supply, consumption, and investment decisions are interdependent. We review these theories in section 5 .

Table 1 offers a schematic overview of the literature. To improve readability, the table only includes studies that we review in detail, with articles listed in order of appearance in the text. The table also abstracts from models’ extensions and sensitivity checks, and focuses exclusively on the causal pathways leading from gender inequality to economic growth.

The vast majority of theories reviewed argue that gender inequality is a barrier to economic development, particularly over the long run. The focus on long-run supply-side models reflects a recent effort by growth theorists to incorporate two stylized facts of economic development in the last two centuries: (i) a strong positive association between gender equality and income per capita (Fig. 1 ), and (ii) a strong association between the timing of the fertility transition and income per capita (Fig. 2 ). Footnote 7 Models that endogenize a fertility transition are able to generate a transition from a Malthusian regime of stagnation to a modern regime of sustained economic growth, thus replicating the development experience of human societies in the very long run (e.g., Galor 2005a , b ; Guinnane 2011 ). In contrast, demand-driven models in the heterodox and feminist traditions have often argued that gender wage discrimination and gendered sectoral and occupational segregation can be conducive to economic growth in semi-industrialized export-oriented economies. Footnote 8 In these settings—that fit well the experience of East and Southeast Asian economies—gender wage discrimination in female-intensive export industries reduces production costs and boosts exports, profits, and investment (Blecker & Seguino 2002 ; Seguino 2010 ).

Income level and gender equality. Income is the natural log of per capita GDP (PPP-adjusted). The Gender Development Index is the ratio of gender-specific Human Development Indexes: female HDI/male HDI. Data are for the year 2000. Sources: UNDP

Income level and timing of the fertility transition. Income is the natural log of per capita GDP (PPP-adjusted) in 2000. Years since fertility transition are the number of years between 2000 and the onset year of the fertility decline. See Reher ( 2004 ) for details. Sources: UNDP and Reher ( 2004 )

In most long-run, supply-side models reviewed here, irrespectively of the underlying source of gender differences (e.g., biology, socialization, discrimination), the opportunity cost of women’s time in foregone labor market earnings is lower than that of men. This gender gap in the value of time affects economic growth through two main mechanisms. First, when the labor market value of women’s time is relatively low, women will be in charge of childrearing and domestic work in the family. A low value of female time means that children are cheap. Fertility will be high, and economic growth will be low, both because population growth has a direct negative impact on long-run economic performance and because human capital accumulates at a slower pace (through the quantity-quality trade-off). Second, if parents expect relatively low returns to female education, due to women specializing in domestic activities, they will invest relatively less in the education of girls. In the words of Harriet Martineau, one of the first to describe this mechanism, “as women have none of the objects in life for which an enlarged education is considered requisite, the education is not given” (Martineau 1837 , p. 107). In the long run, lower human capital investments (on girls) lead to slower economic development.

Overall, gender inequality can be conceptualized as a source of inefficiency, to the extent that it results in the misallocation of productive factors, such as talent or labor, and as a source of negative externalities, when it leads to higher fertility, skewed sex ratios, or lower human capital accumulation.

We conclude, in section 6 , by examining the limitations of the current literature and pointing ways forward. Among them, we suggest deeper investigations of the role of (endogenous) technological change on gender inequality, as well as greater attention to the role and interests of men in affecting gender inequality and its impact on growth.

2 Gender discrimination and misallocation of talent

Perhaps the single most intuitive argument for why gender discrimination leads to aggregate inefficiency and hampers economic growth concerns the allocation of talent. Assume that talent is randomly distributed in the population. Then, an economy that curbs women’s access to education, market employment, or certain occupations draws talent from a smaller pool than an economy without such restrictions. Gender inequality can thus be viewed as a distortionary tax on talent. Indeed, occupational choice models with heterogeneous talent (as in Roy 1951 ) show that exogenous barriers to women’s participation in the labor market or access to certain occupations reduce aggregate productivity and per capita output (Cuberes & Teignier 2016 , 2017 ; Esteve-Volart 2009 ; Hsieh, Hurst, Jones and Klenow 2019 ).

Hsieh et al. ( 2019 ) represent the US economy with a model where individuals sort into occupations based on innate ability. Footnote 9 Gender and race identity, however, are a source of discrimination, with three forces preventing women and black men from choosing the occupations best fitting their comparative advantage. First, these groups face labor market discrimination, which is modeled as a tax on wages and can vary by occupation. Second, there is discrimination in human capital formation, with the costs of occupation-specific human capital being higher for certain groups. This cost penalty is a composite term encompassing discrimination or quality differentials in private or public inputs into children’s human capital. The third force are group-specific social norms that generate utility premia or penalties across occupations. Footnote 10

Assuming that the distribution of innate ability across race and gender is constant over time, Hsieh et al. ( 2019 ) investigate and quantify how declines in labor market discrimination, barriers to human capital formation, and changing social norms affect aggregate output and productivity in the United States, between 1960 and 2010. Over that period, their general equilibrium model suggests that around 40 percent of growth in per capita GDP and 90 percent of growth in labor force participation can be attributed to reductions in the misallocation of talent across occupations. Declining in barriers to human capital formation account for most of these effects, followed by declining labor market discrimination. Changing social norms, on the other hand, explain only a residual share of aggregate changes.

Two main mechanisms drive these results. First, falling discrimination improves efficiency through a better match between individual ability and occupation. Second, because discrimination is higher in high-skill occupations, when discrimination decreases, high-ability women and black men invest more in human capital and supply more labor to the market. Overall, better allocation of talent, rising labor supply, and faster human capital accumulation raise aggregate growth and productivity.

Other occupational choice models assuming gender inequality in access to the labor market or certain occupations reach similar conclusions. In addition to the mechanisms in Hsieh et al. ( 2019 ), barriers to women’s work in managerial or entrepreneurial occupations reduce average talent in these positions, resulting in aggregate losses in innovation, technology adoption, and productivity (Cuberes & Teignier 2016 , 2017 ; Esteve-Volart 2009 ). The argument can be readily applied to talent misallocation across sectors (Lee 2020 ). In Lee’s model, female workers face discrimination in the non-agricultural sector. As a result, talented women end up sorting into ill-suited agricultural activities. This distortion reduces aggregate productivity in agriculture. Footnote 11

To sum up, when talent is randomly distributed in the population, barriers to women’s education, employment, or occupational choice effectively reduce the pool of talent in the economy. According to these models, dismantling these gendered barriers can have an immediate positive effect on economic growth.

3 Unitary households: parents and children

In this section, we review models built upon unitary households. A unitary household maximizes a joint utility function subject to pooled household resources. Intra-household decision making is assumed away; the household is effectively a black-box. In this class of models, gender inequality stems from a variety of sources. It is rooted in differences in physical strength (Galor & Weil 1996 ; Hiller 2014 ; Kimura & Yasui 2010 ) or health (Bloom et al. 2015 ); it is embedded in social norms (Hiller 2014 ; Lagerlöf 2003 ), labor market discrimination (Cavalcanti & Tavares 2016 ), or son preference (Zhang, Zhang and Li 1999 ). In all these models, gender inequality is a barrier to long-run economic development.

Galor & Weil ( 1996 ) model an economy with three factors of production: capital, physical labor (“brawn”), and mental labor (“brain”). Men and women are equally endowed with brains, but men have more brawn. In economies starting with very low levels of capital per worker, women fully specialize in childrearing because their opportunity cost in terms of foregone market earnings is lower than men’s. Over time, the stock of capital per worker builds up due to exogenous technological progress. The degree of complementarity between capital and mental labor is higher than that between capital and physical labor; as the economy accumulates capital per worker, the returns to brain rise relative to the returns to brawn. As a result, the relative wages of women rise, increasing the opportunity cost of childrearing. This negative substitution effect dominates the positive income effect on the demand for children and fertility falls. Footnote 12 As fertility falls, capital per worker accumulates faster creating a positive feedback loop that generates a fertility transition and kick starts a process of sustained economic growth.

The model has multiple stable equilibria. An economy starting from a low level of capital per worker is caught in a Malthusian poverty trap of high fertility, low income per capita, and low relative wages for women. In contrast, an economy starting from a sufficiently high level of capital per worker will converge to a virtuous equilibrium of low fertility, high income per capita, and high relative wages for women. Through exogenous technological progress, the economy can move from the low to the high equilibrium.

Gender inequality in labor market access or returns to brain can slow down or even prevent the escape from the Malthusian equilibrium. Wage discrimination or barriers to employment would work against the rise of relative female wages and, therefore, slow down the takeoff to modern economic growth.

The Galor and Weil model predicts how female labor supply and fertility evolve in the course of development. First, (married) women start participating in market work and only afterwards does fertility start declining. Historically, however, in the US and Western Europe, the decline in fertility occurred before women’s participation rates in the labor market started their dramatic increase. In addition, these regions experienced a mid-twentieth century baby boom which seems at odds with Galor and Weil’s theory.

Both these stylized facts can be addressed by adding home production to the modeling, as do Kimura & Yasui ( 2010 ). In their article, as capital per worker accumulates, the market wage for brains rises and the economy moves through four stages of development. In the first stage, with a sufficiently low market wage, both husband and wife are fully dedicated to home production and childrearing. The household does not supply labor to the market; fertility is high and constant. In the second stage, as the wage rate increases, men enter the labor market (supplying both brawn and brain), whereas women remain fully engaged in home production and childrearing. But as men partially withdraw from home production, women have to replace them. As a result, their time cost of childrearing goes up. At this stage of development, the negative substitution effect of rising wages on fertility dominates the positive income effect. Fertility starts declining, even though women have not yet entered the labor market. The third stage arrives when men stop working in home production. There is complete specialization of labor by gender; men only do market work, and women only do home production and childrearing. As the market wage rises for men, the positive income effect becomes dominant and fertility increases; this mimics the baby-boom period of the mid-twentieth century. In the fourth and final stage, once sufficient capital is accumulated, women enter the market sector as wage-earners. The negative substitution effect of rising female opportunity costs dominates once again, and fertility declines. The economy moves from a “breadwinner model” to a “dual-earnings model”.

Another important form of gender inequality is discrimination against women in the form of lower wages, holding male and female productivity constant. Cavalcanti & Tavares ( 2016 ) estimate the aggregate effects of wage discrimination using a model-based general equilibrium representation of the US economy. In their model, women are assumed to be more productive in childrearing than men, so they pay the full time cost of this activity. In the labor market, even though men and women are equally productive, women receive only a fraction of the male wage rate—this is the wage discrimination assumption. Wage discrimination works as a tax on female labor supply. Because women work less than they would without discrimination, there is a negative level effect on per capita output. In addition, there is a second negative effect of wage discrimination operating through endogenous fertility. Since lower wages reduce women’s opportunity costs of childrearing, fertility is relatively high, and output per capita is relatively low. The authors calibrate the model to US steady state parameters and estimate large negative output costs of the gender wage gap. Reducing wage discrimination against women by 50 percent would raise per capita income by 35 percent, in the long run.

Human capital accumulation plays no role in Galor & Weil ( 1996 ), Kimura & Yasui ( 2010 ), and Cavalcanti & Tavares ( 2016 ). Each person is exogenously endowed with a unit of brains. The fundamental trade-off in the these models is between the income and substitution effects of rising wages on the demand for children. When Lagerlöf ( 2003 ) adds education investments to a gender-based model, an additional trade-off emerges: that between the quantity and the quality of children.

Lagerlöf ( 2003 ) models gender inequality as a social norm: on average, men have higher human capital than women. Confronted with this fact, parents play a coordination game in which it is optimal for them to reproduce the inequality in the next generation. The reason is that parents expect the future husbands of their daughters to be, on average, relatively more educated than the future wives of their sons. Because, in the model, parents care for the total income of their children’s future households, they respond by investing relatively less in daughters’ human capital. Here, gender inequality does not arise from some intrinsic difference between men and women. It is instead the result of a coordination failure: “[i]f everyone else behaves in a discriminatory manner, it is optimal for the atomistic player to do the same” (Lagerlöf 2003 , p. 404).

With lower human capital, women earn lower wages than men and are therefore solely responsible for the time cost of childrearing. But if, exogenously, the social norm becomes more gender egalitarian over time, the gender gap in parental educational investment decreases. As better educated girls grow up and become mothers, their opportunity costs of childrearing are higher. Parents trade-off the quantity of children by their quality; fertility falls and human capital accumulates. However, rising wages have an offsetting positive income effect on fertility because parents pay a (fixed) “goods cost” per child. The goods cost is proportionally more important in poor societies than in richer ones. As a result, in poor economies, growth takes off slowly because the positive income effect offsets a large chunk of the negative substitution effect. As economies grow richer, the positive income effect vanishes (as a share of total income), and fertility declines faster. That is, growth accelerates over time even if gender equality increases only linearly.

The natural next step is to model how the social norm on gender roles evolves endogenously during the course of development. Hiller ( 2014 ) develops such a model by combining two main ingredients: a gender gap in the endowments of brawn (as in Galor & Weil 1996 ) generates a social norm, which each parental couple takes as given (as in Lagerlöf 2003 ). The social norm evolves endogenously, but slowly; it tracks the gender ratio of labor supply in the market, but with a small elasticity. When the male-female ratio in labor supply decreases, stereotypes adjust and the norm becomes less discriminatory against women.

The model generates a U-shaped relationship between economic development and female labor force participation. Footnote 13 In the preindustrial stage, there is no education and all labor activities are unskilled, i.e., produced with brawn. Because men have a comparative advantage in brawn, they supply more labor to the market than women, who specialize in home production. This gender gap in labor supply creates a social norm that favors boys over girls. Over time, exogenous skill-biased technological progress raises the relative returns to brains, inducing parents to invest in their children’s education. At the beginning, however, because of the social norm, only boys become educated. The economy accumulates human capital and grows, generating a positive income effect that, in isolation, would eventually drive up parental investments in girls’ education. Footnote 14 But endogenous social norms move in the opposite direction. When only boys receive education, the gender gap in returns to market work increases, and women withdraw to home production. As female relative labor supply in the market drops, the social norm becomes more discriminatory against women. As a result, parents want to invest relatively less in their daughters’ education.

In the end, initial conditions determine which of the forces dominates, thereby shaping long-term outcomes. If, initially, the social norm is very discriminatory, its effect is stronger than the income effect; the economy becomes trapped in an equilibrium with high gender inequality and low per capita income. If, on the other hand, social norms are relatively egalitarian to begin with, then the income effect dominates, and the economy converges to an equilibrium with gender equality and high income per capita.

In the models reviewed so far, human capital or brain endowments can be understood as combining both education and health. Bloom et al. ( 2015 ) explicitly distinguish these two dimensions. Health affects labor market earnings because sick people are out of work more often (participation effect) and are less productive per hour of work (productivity effect). Female health is assumed to be worse than male health, implying that women’s effective wages are lower than men’s. As a result, women are solely responsible for childrearing. Footnote 15

The model produces two growth regimes: a Malthusian trap with high fertility and no educational investments; and a regime of sustained growth, declining fertility, and rising educational investments. Once wages reach a certain threshold, the economy goes through a fertility transition and education expansion, taking off from the Malthusian regime to the sustained growth regime.

Female health promotes growth in both regimes, and it affects the timing of the takeoff. The healthier women are, the earlier the economy takes off. The reason is that a healthier woman earns a higher effective wage and, consequently, faces higher opportunity costs of raising children. When female health improves, the rising opportunity costs of children reduce the wage threshold at which educational investments become attractive; the fertility transition and mass education periods occur earlier.

In contrast, improved male health slows down economic growth and delays the fertility transition. When men become healthier, there is only a income effect on the demand for children, without the negative substitution effect (because male childrearing time is already zero). The policy conclusion would be to redistribute health from men to women. However, the policy would impose a static utility cost on the household. Because women’s time allocation to market work is constrained by childrearing responsibilities (whereas men work full-time), the marginal effect of health on household income is larger for men than for women. From the household’s point of view, reducing the gender gap in health produces a trade-off between short-term income maximization and long-term economic development.

In an extension of the model, the authors endogeneize health investments, while keeping the assumption that women pay the full time cost of childrearing. Because women participate less in the labor market (due to childrearing duties), it is optimal for households to invest more in male health. A health gender gap emerges from rational household behavior that takes into account how time-constraints differ by gender; assuming taste-based discrimination against girls or gender-specific preferences is not necessary.

In the models reviewed so far, parents invest in their children’s human capital for purely altruistic reasons. This is captured in the models by assuming that parents derive utility directly from the quantity and quality of children. This is the classical representation of children as durable consumption goods (e.g., Becker 1960 ). In reality, of course, parents may also have egoistic motivations for investing in child quantity and quality. A typical example is that, when parents get old and retire, they receive support from their children. The quantity and quality of children will affect the size of old-age transfers and parents internalize this in their fertility and childcare behavior. According to this view, children are best understood as investment goods.

Zhang et al. ( 1999 ) build an endogenous growth model that incorporates the old-age support mechanism in parental decisions. Another innovative element of their model is that parents can choose the gender of their children. The implicit assumption is that sex selection technologies are freely available to all parents.

At birth, there is a gender gap in human capital endowment, favoring boys over girls. Footnote 16 In adulthood, a child’s human capital depends on the initial endowment and on the parents’ human capital. In addition, the probability that a child survives to adulthood is exogenous and can differ by gender.

Parents receive old-age support from children that survive until adulthood. The more human capital children have, the more old-age support they provide to their parents. Beyond this egoistic motive, parents also enjoy the quantity and the quality of children (altruistic motive). Son preference is modeled by boys having a higher relative weight in the altruistic-component of the parental utility function. In other words, in their enjoyment of children as consumer goods, parents enjoy “consuming” a son more than “consuming” a girl. Parents who prefer sons want more boys than girls. A larger preference for sons, a higher relative survival probability of boys, and a higher human capital endowment of boys positively affect the sex ratio at birth, because, in the parents’ perspective, all these forces increase the marginal utility of boys relative to girls.

Zhang et al. ( 1999 ) show that, if human capital transmission from parents to children is efficient enough, the economy grows endogenously. When boys have a higher human capital endowment than girls, and the survival probability of sons is not smaller than the survival probability of daughters, then only sons provide old-age support. Anticipating this, parents invest more in the human capital of their sons than on the human capital of their daughters. As a result, the gender gap in human capital at birth widens endogenously.

When only boys provide old-age support, an exogenous increase in son preference harms long-run economic growth. The reason is that, when son preference increases, parents enjoy each son relatively more and demand less old-age support from him. Other things equal, parents want to “consume” more sons now and less old-age support later. Because parents want more sons, the sex ratio at birth increases; but because each son provides less old-age support, human capital investments per son decrease (such that the gender gap in human capital narrows). At the aggregate level, the pace of human capital accumulation slows down and, in the long run, economic growth is lower. Thus, an exogenous increase in son preference increases the sex ratio at birth, and reduces human capital accumulation and long-run growth (although it narrows the gender gap in education).

In summary, in growth models with unitary households, gender inequality is closely linked to the division of labor between family members. If women earn relatively less in market activities, they specialize in childrearing and home production, while men specialize in market work. And precisely due to this division of labor, the returns to female educational investments are relatively low. These household behaviors translate into higher fertility and lower human capital and thus pose a barrier to long-run development.

4 Intra-household bargaining: husbands and wives

In this section, we review models populated with non-unitary households, where decisions are the result of bargaining between the spouses. There are two broad types of bargaining processes: non-cooperative, where spouses act independently or interact in a non-cooperative game that often leads to inefficient outcomes (e.g., Doepke & Tertilt 2019 , Heath & Tan 2020 ); and cooperative, where the spouses are assumed to achieve an efficient outcome (e.g., De la Croix & Vander Donckt 2010 ; Diebolt & Perrin 2013 ). As in the previous section, all of these non-unitary models take the household as given, thereby abstracting from marriage markets or other household formation institutions, which will be discussed separately in section 5 . When preferences differ by gender, bargaining between the spouses matters for economic growth. If women care more about child quality than men do and human capital accumulation is the main engine of growth, then empowering women leads to faster economic growth (Prettner & Strulik 2017 ). If, however, men and women have similar preferences but are imperfect substitutes in the production of household public goods, then empowering women has an ambiguous effect on economic growth (Doepke & Tertilt 2019 ).

A separate channel concerns the intergenerational transmission of human capital and woman’s role as the main caregiver of children. If the education of the mother matters more than the education of the father in the production of children’s human capital, then empowering women will be conducive to growth (Agénor 2017 ; Diebolt & Perrin 2013 ), with the returns to education playing a crucial role in the political economy of female empowerment (Doepke & Tertilt 2009 ).

However, different dimensions of gender inequality have different growth impacts along the development process (De la Croix & Vander Donckt 2010 ). Policies that improve gender equality across many dimensions can be particularly effective for economic growth by reaping complementarities and positive externalities (Agénor 2017 ).

The idea that women might have stronger preferences for child-related expenditures than men can be easily incorporated in a Beckerian model of fertility. The necessary assumption is that women place a higher weight on child quality (relative to child quantity) than men do. Prettner & Strulik ( 2017 ) build a unified growth theory model with collective households. Men and women have different preferences, but they achieve efficient cooperation based on (reduced-form) bargaining parameters. The authors study the effect of two types of preferences: (i) women are assumed to have a relative preference for child quality, while men have a relative preference for child quantity; and (ii) parents are assumed to have a relative preference for the education of sons over the education of daughters. In addition, it is assumed that the time cost of childcare borne by men cannot be above that borne by women (but it could be the same).

When women have a relative preference for child quality, increasing female empowerment speeds up the economy’s escape from a Malthusian trap of high fertility, low education, and low income per capita. When female empowerment increases (exogenously), a woman’s relative preference for child quality has a higher impact on household’s decisions. As a consequence, fertility falls, human capital accumulates, and the economy starts growing. The model also predicts that the more preferences for child quality differ between husband and wife, the more effective is female empowerment in raising long-run per capita income, because the sooner the economy escapes the Malthusian trap. This effect is not affected by whether parents have a preference for the education of boys relative to that of girls. If, however, men and women have similar preferences with respect to the quantity and quality of their children, then female empowerment does not affect the timing of the transition to the sustained growth regime.

Strulik ( 2019 ) goes one step further and endogeneizes why men seem to prefer having more children than women. The reason is a different preference for sexual activity: other things equal, men enjoy having sex more than women. Footnote 17 When cheap and effective contraception is not available, a higher male desire for sexual activity explains why men also prefer to have more children than women. In a traditional economy, where no contraception is available, fertility is high, while human capital and economic growth are low. When female bargaining power increases, couples reduce their sexual activity, fertility declines, and human capital accumulates faster. Faster human capital accumulation increases household income and, as a consequence, the demand for contraception goes up. As contraception use increases, fertility declines further. Eventually, the economy undergoes a fertility transition and moves to a modern regime with low fertility, widespread use of contraception, high human capital, and high economic growth. In the modern regime, because contraception is widely used, men’s desire for sex is decoupled from fertility. Both sex and children cost time and money. When the two are decoupled, men prefer to have more sex at the expense of the number of children. There is a reversal in the gender gap in desired fertility. When contraceptives are not available, men desire more children than women; once contraceptives are widely used, men desire fewer children than women. If women are more empowered, the transition from the traditional equilibrium to the modern equilibrium occurs faster.

Both Prettner & Strulik ( 2017 ) and Strulik ( 2019 ) rely on gender-specific preferences. In contrast, Doepke & Tertilt ( 2019 ) are able to explain gender-specific expenditure patterns without having to assume that men and women have different preferences. They set up a non-cooperative model of household decision making and ask whether more female control of household resources leads to higher child expenditures and, thus, to economic development. Footnote 18

In their model, household public goods are produced with two inputs: time and goods. Instead of a single home-produced good (as in most models), there is a continuum of household public goods whose production technologies differ. Some public goods are more time-intensive to produce, while others are more goods-intensive. Each specific public good can only be produced by one spouse—i.e., time and good inputs are not separable. Women face wage discrimination in the labor market, so their opportunity cost of time is lower than men’s. As a result, women specialize in the production of the most time-intensive household public goods (e.g., childrearing activities), while men specialize in the production of goods-intensive household public goods (e.g., housing infrastructure). Notice that, because the household is non-cooperative, there is not only a division of labor between husband and wife, but also a division of decision making, since ultimately each spouse decides how much to provide of his or her public goods.

When household resources are redistributed from men to women (i.e., from the high-wage spouse to the low-wage spouse), women provide more public goods, in relative terms. It is ambiguous, however, whether the total provision of public goods increases with the re-distributive transfer. In a classic model of gender-specific preferences, a wife increases child expenditures and her own private consumption at the expense of the husband’s private consumption. In Doepke & Tertilt ( 2019 ), however, the rise in child expenditures (and time-intensive public goods in general) comes at the expense of male consumption and male-provided public goods.

Parents contribute to the welfare of the next generation in two ways: via human capital investments (time-intensive, typically done by the mother) and bequests of physical capital (goods-intensive, typically done by the father). Transferring resources to women increases human capital, but reduces the stock of physical capital. The effect of such transfers on economic growth depends on whether the aggregate production function is relatively intensive in human capital or in physical capital. If aggregate production is relatively human capital intensive, then transfers to women boost economic growth; if it is relatively intensive in physical capital, then transfers to women may reduce economic growth.

There is an interesting paradox here. On the one hand, transfers to women will be growth-enhancing in economies where production is intensive in human capital. These would be more developed, knowledge intensive, service economies. On the other hand, the positive growth effect of transfers to women increases with the size of the gender wage gap, that is, decreases with female empowerment. But the more advanced, human capital intensive economies are also the ones with more female empowerment (i.e., lower gender wage gaps). In other words, in settings where human capital investments are relatively beneficial, the contribution of female empowerment to human capital accumulation is reduced. Overall, Doepke and Tertilt’s ( 2019 ) model predicts that female empowerment has at best a limited positive effect and at worst a negative effect on economic growth.

Heath & Tan ( 2020 ) argue that, in a non-cooperative household model, income transfers to women may increase female labor supply. Footnote 19 This result may appear counter-intuitive at first, because in collective household models unearned income unambiguously reduces labor supply through a negative income effect. In Heath and Tan’s model, husband and wife derive utility from leisure, consuming private goods, and consuming a household public good. The spouses decide separately on labor supply and monetary contributions to the household public good. Men and women are identical in preferences and behavior, but women have limited control over resources, with a share of their income being captured by the husband. Female control over resources (i.e., autonomy) depends positively on the wife’s relative contribution to household income. Thus, an income transfer to the wife, keeping husband unearned income constant, raises the fraction of her own income that she privately controls. This autonomy effect unambiguously increases women’s labor supply, because the wife can now reap an additional share of her wage bill. Whenever the autonomy effect dominates the (negative) income effect, female labor supply increases. The net effect will be heterogeneous over the wage distribution, but the authors show that aggregate female labor supply is always weakly larger after the income transfer.

Diebolt & Perrin ( 2013 ) assume cooperative bargaining between husband and wife, but do not rely on sex-specific preferences or differences in ability. Men and women are only distinguished by different uses of their time endowments, with females in charge of all childrearing activities. In line with this labor division, the authors further assume that only the mother’s human capital is inherited by the child at birth. On top of the inherited maternal endowment, individuals can accumulate human capital during adulthood, through schooling. The higher the initial human capital endowment, the more effective is the accumulation of human capital via schooling.

A woman’s bargaining power in marriage determines her share in total household consumption and is a function of the relative female human capital of the previous generation. An increase in the human capital of mothers relative to that of fathers has two effects. First, it raises the incentives for human capital accumulation of the next generation, because inherited maternal human capital makes schooling more effective. Second, it raises the bargaining power of the next generation of women and, because women’s consumption share increases, boosts the returns on women’s education. The second effect is not internalized in women’s time allocation decisions; it is an intergenerational externality. Thus, an exogenous increase in women’s bargaining power would promote economic growth by speeding up the accumulation of human capital across overlapping generations.

De la Croix & Vander Donckt ( 2010 ) contribute to the literature by clearly distinguishing between different gender gaps: a gap in the probability of survival, a wage gap, a social and institutional gap, and a gender education gap. The first three are exogenously given, while the fourth is determined within the model.

By assumption, men and women have identical preferences and ability, but women pay the full time cost of childrearing. As in a typical collective household model, bargaining power is partially determined by the spouses’ earnings potential (i.e., their levels of human capital and their wage rates). But there is also a component of bargaining power that is exogenous and captures social norms that discriminate against women—this is the social and institutional gender gap.

Husbands and wives bargain over fertility and human capital investments for their children. A standard Beckerian result emerges: parents invest relatively less in the education of girls, because girls will be more time-constrained than boys and, therefore, the female returns to education are lower in relative terms.

There are at least two regimes in the economy: a corner regime and an interior regime. The corner regime consists of maximum fertility, full gender specialization (no women in the labor market), and large gender gaps in education (no education for girls). Reducing the wage gap or the social and institutional gap does not help the economy escaping this regime. Women are not in labor force, so the wage gap is meaningless. The social and institutional gap will determine women’s share in household consumption, but does not affect fertility and growth. At this stage, the only effective instruments for escaping the corner regime are reducing the gender survival gap or reducing child mortality. Reducing the gender survival gap increases women’s lifespan, which increases their time budget and attracts them to the labor market. Reducing child mortality decreases the time costs of kids, therefore drawing women into the labor market. In both cases, fertility decreases.

In the interior regime, fertility is below the maximum, women’s labor supply is above zero, and both boys and girls receive education. In this regime, with endogenous bargaining power, reducing all gender gaps will boost economic growth. Footnote 20 Thus, depending on the growth regime, some gender gaps affect economic growth, while others do not. Accordingly, the policy-maker should tackle different dimensions of gender inequality at different stages of the development process.

Agénor ( 2017 ) presents a computable general equilibrium that includes many of the elements of gender inequality reviewed so far. An important contribution of the model is to explicitly add the government as an agent whose policies interact with family decisions and, therefore, will impact women’s time allocation. Workers produce a market good and a home good and are organized in collective households. Bargaining power depends on the spouses’ relative human capital levels. By assumption, there is gender discrimination in market wages against women. On top, mothers are exclusively responsible for home production and childrearing, which takes the form of time spent improving children’s health and education. But public investments in education and health also improve these outcomes during childhood. Likewise, public investment in public infrastructure contributes positively to home production. In particular, the ratio of public infrastructure capital stock to private capital stock is a substitute for women’s time in home production. The underlying idea is that improving sanitation, transportation, and other infrastructure reduces time spent in home production. Health status in adulthood depends on health status in childhood, which, in turn, relates positively to mother’s health, her time inputs into childrearing, and government spending. Children’s human capital depends on similar factors, except that mother’s human capital replaces her health as an input. Additionally, women are assumed to derive less utility from current consumption and more utility from children’s health relative to men. Wives are also assumed to live longer than their husbands, which further down-weights female’s emphasis on current consumption. The final gendered assumption is that mother’s time use is biased towards boys. This bias alone creates a gender gap in education and health. As adults, women’s relative lower health and human capital are translated into relative lower bargaining power in household decisions.

Agénor ( 2017 ) calibrates this rich setup for Benin, a low income country, and runs a series of policy experiments on different dimensions of gender inequality: a fall in childrearing costs, a fall in gender pay discrimination, a fall in son bias in mother’s time allocation, and an exogenous increase in female bargaining power. Footnote 21 Interestingly, despite all policies improving gender equality in separate dimensions, not all unambiguously stimulate economic growth. For example, falling childrearing costs raise savings and private investments, which are growth-enhancing, but increase fertility (as children become ‘cheaper’) and reduce maternal time investment per child, thus reducing growth. In contrast, a fall in gender pay discrimination always leads to higher growth, through higher household income that, in turn, boosts savings, tax revenues, and public spending. Higher public spending further contributes to improved health and education of the next generation. Lastly, Agénor ( 2017 ) simulates the effect of a combined policy that improves gender equality in all domains simultaneously. Due to complementarities and positive externalities across dimensions, the combined policy generates more economic growth than the sum of the individual policies. Footnote 22

In the models reviewed so far, men are passive observers of women’s empowerment. Doepke & Tertilt ( 2009 ) set up an interesting political economy model of women’s rights, where men make the decisive choice. Their model is motivated by the fact that, historically, the economic rights of women were expanded before their political rights. Because the granting of economic rights empowers women in the household, and this was done before women were allowed to participate in the political process, the relevant question is why did men willingly share their power with their wives?

Doepke & Tertilt ( 2009 ) answer this question by arguing that men face a fundamental trade-off. On the one hand, husbands would vote for their wives to have no rights whatsoever, because husbands prefer as much intra-household bargaining power as possible. But, on the other hand, fathers would vote for their daughters to have economic rights in their future households. In addition, fathers want their children to marry highly educated spouses, and grandfathers want their grandchildren to be highly educated. By assumption, men and women have different preferences, with women having a relative preference for child quality over quantity. Accordingly, men internalize that, when women become empowered, human capital investments increase, making their children and grandchildren better-off.

Skill-biased (exogenous) technological progress that raises the returns to education over time can shift male incentives along this trade-off. When the returns to education are low, men prefer to make all decisions on their own and deny all rights to women. But once the returns to education are sufficiently high, men voluntarily share their power with women by granting them economic rights. As a result, human capital investments increase and the economy grows faster.

In summary, gender inequality in labor market earnings often implies power asymmetries within the household, with men having more bargaining power than women. If preferences differ by gender and female preferences are more conducive to development, then empowering women is beneficial for growth. When preferences are the same and the bargaining process is non-cooperative, the implications are less clear-cut, and more context-specific. If, in addition, women’s empowerment is curtailed by law (e.g., restrictions on women’s economic rights), then it is important to understand the political economy of women’s rights, in which men are crucial actors.

5 Marriage markets and household formation

Two-sex models of economic growth have largely ignored how households are formed. The marriage market is not explicitly modeled: spouses are matched randomly, marriage is universal and monogamous, and families are nuclear. In reality, however, household formation patterns vary substantially across societies, with some of these differences extending far back in history. For example, Hajnal ( 1965 , 1982 ) described a distinct household formation pattern in preindustrial Northwestern Europe (often referred to as the “European Marriage Pattern”) characterized by: (i) late ages at first marriage for women, (ii) most marriages done under individual consent, and (iii) neolocality (i.e., upon marriage, the bride and the groom leave their parental households to form a new household). In contrast, marriage systems in China and India consisted of: (i) very early female ages at first marriage, (ii) arranged marriages, and (iii) patrilocality (i.e., the bride joins the parental household of the groom).

Economic historians argue that the “European Marriage Pattern” empowered women, encouraging their participation in market activities and reducing fertility levels. While some view this as one of the deep-rooted factors explaining Northwestern Europe’s earlier takeoff to sustained economic growth (e.g., Carmichael, de Pleijt, van Zanden and De Moor 2016 ; De Moor & Van Zanden 2010 ; Hartman 2004 ), others have downplayed the long-run significance of this marriage pattern (e.g., Dennison & Ogilvie 2014 ; Ruggles 2009 ). Despite this lively debate, the topic has been largely ignored by growth theorists. The few exceptions are Voigtländer and Voth ( 2013 ), Edlund and Lagerlöf ( 2006 ), and Tertilt ( 2005 , 2006 ).

After exploring different marriage institutions, we zoom in on contemporary monogamous and consensual marriage and review models where gender inequality affects economic growth through marriage markets that facilitate household formation (Du & Wei 2013 ; Grossbard & Pereira 2015 ; Grossbard-Shechtman 1984 ; Guvenen & Rendall 2015 ). In contrast with the previous two sections, where the household is the starting point of the analysis, the literature on marriage markets and household formation recognizes that marriage, labor supply, and investment decisions are interlinked. The analysis of these interlinkages is sometimes done with unitary households (upon marriage) (Du & Wei 2013 ; Guvenen & Rendall 2015 ), or with non-cooperative models of individual decision-making within households (Grossbard & Pereira 2015 ; Grossbard-Shechtman 1984 ).

Voigtländer and Voth ( 2013 ) argue that the emergence of the “European Marriage Pattern” is a direct consequence of the mid-fourteen century Black Death. They set up a two-sector agricultural economy consisting of physically demanding cereal farming, and less physically demanding pastoral production. The economy is populated by many male and female peasants and by a class of idle, rent-maximizing landlords. Female peasants are heterogeneous with respect to physical strength, but, on average, are assumed to have less brawn relative to male peasants and, thus, have a comparative advantage in the pastoral sector. Both sectors use land as a production input, although the pastoral sector is more land-intensive than cereal production. All land is owned by the landlords, who can rent it out for peasant cereal farming, or use it for large-scale livestock farming, for which they hire female workers. Crucially, women can only work and earn wages in the pastoral sector as long as they are unmarried. Footnote 23 Peasant women decide when to marry and, upon marriage, a peasant couple forms a new household, where husband and wife both work on cereal farming, and have children at a given time frequency. Thus, the only contraceptive method available is delaying marriage. Because women derive utility from consumption and children, they face a trade-off between earned income and marriage.

Initially, the economy rests in a Malthusian regime, where land-labor ratios are relatively low, making the land-intensive pastoral sector unattractive and depressing relative female wages. As a result, women marry early and fertility is high. The initial regime ends in 1348–1350, when the Black Death kills between one third and half of Europe’s population, exogenously generating land abundance and, therefore, raising the relative wages of female labor in pastoral production. Women postpone marriage to reap higher wages, and fertility decreases—moving the economy to a regime of late marriages and low fertility.

In addition to late marital ages and reduced fertility, another important feature of the “European Marriage Pattern” was individual consent for marriage. Edlund and Lagerlöf ( 2006 ) study how rules of consent for marriage influence long-run economic development. In their model, marriages can be formed according to two types of consent rules: individual consent or parental consent. Under individual consent, young people are free to marry whomever they wish, while, under parental consent, their parents are in charge of arranging the marriage. Depending on the prevailing rule, the recipient of the bride-price differs. Under individual consent, a woman receives the bride-price from her husband, whereas, under parental consent, her father receives the bride-price from the father of the groom. Footnote 24 In both situations, the father of the groom owns the labor income of his son and, therefore, pays the bride-price, either directly, under parental consent, or indirectly, under individual consent. Under individual consent, the father needs to transfer resources to his son to nudge him into marrying. Thus, individual consent implies a transfer of resources from the old to the young and from men to women, relative to the rule of parental consent. Redistributing resources from the old to the young boosts long-run economic growth. Because the young have a longer timespan to extract income from their children’s labor, they invest relatively more in the human capital of the next generation. In addition, under individual consent, the reallocation of resources from men to women can have additional positive effects on growth, by increasing women’s bargaining power (see section 4 ), although this channel is not explicitly modeled in Edlund and Lagerlöf ( 2006 ).

Tertilt ( 2005 ) explores the effects of polygyny on long-run development through its impact on savings and fertility. In her model, parental consent applies to women, while individual consent applies to men. There is a competitive marriage market where fathers sell their daughters and men buy their wives. As each man is allowed (and wants) to marry several wives, a positive bride-price emerges in equilibrium. Footnote 25 Upon marriage, the reproductive rights of the bride are transferred from her father to her husband, who makes all fertility decisions on his own and, in turn, owns the reproductive rights of his daughters. From a father’s perspective, daughters are investments goods; they can be sold in the marriage market, at any time. This feature generates additional demand for daughters, which increases overall fertility, and reduces the incentives to save, which decreases the stock of physical capital. Under monogamy, in contrast, the equilibrium bride-price is negative (i.e., a dowry). The reason is that maintaining unmarried daughters is costly for their fathers, so they are better-off paying a (small enough) dowry to their future husbands. In this setting, the economic returns to daughters are lower and, consequently, so is the demand for children. Fertility decreases and savings increase. Thus, moving from polygny to monogamy lowers population growth and raises the capital stock in the long run, which translates into higher output per capita in the steady state.

Instead of enforcing monogamy in a traditionally polygynous setting, an alternative policy is to transfer marriage consent from fathers to daughters. Tertilt ( 2006 ) shows that when individual consent is extended to daughters, such that fathers do not receive the bride-price anymore, the consequences are qualitatively similar to a ban on polygyny. If fathers stop receiving the bride-price, they save more physical capital. In the long run, per capita output is higher when consent is transferred to daughters.

Grossbard-Shechtman ( 1984 ) develops the first non-cooperative model where (monogamous) marriage, home production, and labor supply decisions are interdependent. Footnote 26 Spouses are modeled as separate agents deciding over production and consumption. Marriage becomes an implicit contract for ‘work-in-household’ (WiHo), defined as “an activity that benefits another household member [typically a spouse] who could potentially compensate the individual for these efforts” (Grossbard 2015 , p. 21). Footnote 27 In particular, each spouse decides how much labor to supply to market work and WiHo, and how much labor to demand from the other spouse for WiHo. Through this lens, spousal decisions over the intra-marriage distribution of consumption and WiHo are akin to well-known principal-agent problems faced between firms and workers. In the marriage market equilibrium, a spouse benefiting from WiHo (the principal) must compensate the spouse producing it (the agent) via intra-household transfers (of goods or leisure). Footnote 28 Grossbard-Shechtman ( 1984 ) and Grossbard ( 2015 ) show that, under these conditions, the ratio of men to women (i.e., the sex ratio) in the marriage market is inversely related to female labor supply to the market. The reason is that, as the pool of potential wives shrinks, prospective husbands have to increase compensation for female WiHo. From the potential wife’s point of view, as the equilibrium price for her WiHo increases, market work becomes less attractive. Conversely, when sex ratios are lower, female labor supply outside the home increases. Although the model does not explicit derive growth implications, the relative increase in female labor supply is expected to be beneficial for economic growth, as argued by many of the theories reviewed so far.

In an extension of this framework, Grossbard & Pereira ( 2015 ) analyze how sex ratios affect gendered savings over the marital life-cycle. Assuming that women supply a disproportionate amount of labor for WiHo (due, for example, to traditional gender norms), the authors show that men and women will have very distinct saving trajectories. A higher sex ratio increases savings by single men, who anticipate higher compensation transfers for their wives’ WiHo, whereas it decreases savings by single women, who anticipate receiving those transfers upon marriage. But the pattern flips after marriage: precautionary savings raise among married women, because the possibility of marriage dissolution entails a loss of income from WiHo. The opposite effect happens for married men: marriage dissolution would imply less expenditures in the future. The higher the sex ratio, the higher will be the equilibrium compensation paid by husbands for their wives’ WiHo. Therefore, the sex ratio will positively affect savings among single men and married women, but negatively affect savings among single women and married men. The net effect on the aggregate savings rate and on economic growth will depend on the relative size of these demographic groups.

In a related article, Du & Wei ( 2013 ) propose a model where higher sex ratios worsen marriage markets prospects for young men and their families, who react by increasing savings. Women in turn reduce savings. However, because sex ratios shift the composition of the population in favor of men (high saving type) relative to women (low saving type) and men save additionally to compensate for women’s dis-saving, aggregate savings increase unambiguously with sex ratios.

In Guvenen & Rendall ( 2015 ), female education is, in part, demanded as insurance against divorce risk. The reason is that divorce laws often protect spouses’ future labor market earnings (i.e., returns to human capital), but force them to share their physical assets. Because, in the model, women are more likely to gain custody of their children after divorce, they face higher costs from divorce relative to their husbands. Therefore, the higher the risk of divorce, the more women invest in human capital, as insurance against a future vulnerable economic position. Guvenen & Rendall ( 2015 ) shows that, over time, divorce risk has increased (for example, consensual divorce became replaced by unilateral divorce in most US states in the 1970s). In the aggregate, higher divorce risk boosted female education and female labor supply.

In summary, the rules regulating marriage and household formation carry relevant theoretical consequences for economic development. While the few studies on this topic have focused on age at marriage, consent rules and polygyny, and the interaction between sex ratios, marriage, and labor supply, other features of the marriage market remain largely unexplored (Borella, De Nardi and Yang 2018 ). Growth theorists would benefit from further incorporating theories of household formation in gendered macro models. Footnote 29

6 Conclusion

In this article, we surveyed micro-founded theories linking gender inequality to economic development. This literature offers many plausible mechanisms through which inequality between men and women affects the aggregate economy (see Table 1 ). Yet, we believe the body of theories could be expanded in several directions. We discuss them below and highlight lessons for policy.

The first direction for future research concerns control over fertility. In models where fertility is endogenous, households are always able to achieve their preferred number of children (see Strulik 2019 , for an exception). The implicit assumption is that there is a free and infallible method of fertility control available for all households—a view rejected by most demographers. The gap between desired fertility and achieved fertility can be endogeneized at three levels. First, at the societal level, the diffusion of particular contraceptive methods may be influenced by cultural and religious norms. Second, at the household level, fertility control may be object of non-cooperative bargaining between the spouses, in particular, for contraceptive methods that only women perfectly observe (Ashraf, Field and Lee 2014 ; Doepke & Kindermann 2019 ). More generally, the role of asymmetric information within the household is not yet explored (Walther 2017 ). Third, if parents have preferences over the gender composition of their offspring, fertility is better modeled as a sequential and uncertain process, where household size is likely endogenous to the sex of the last born child (Hazan & Zoabi 2015 ).

A second direction worth exploring concerns gender inequality in a historical perspective. In models with multiple equilibria, an economy’s path is often determined by its initial level of gender equality. Therefore, it would be useful to develop theories explaining why initial conditions varied across societies. In particular, there is a large literature on economic and demographic history documenting how systems of marriage and household formation differed substantially across preindustrial societies (e.g., De Moor & Van Zanden 2010 ; Hajnal 1965 , 1982 ; Hartman 2004 ; Ruggles 2009 ). In our view, more theoretical work is needed to explain both the origins and the consequences of these historical systems.

A third avenue for future research concerns the role of technological change. In several models, technological change is the exogenous force that ultimately erodes gender gaps in education or labor supply (e.g., Bloom et al. 2015 ; Doepke & Tertilt 2009 ; Galor & Weil 1996 ). For that to happen, technological progress is assumed to be skill-biased, thus raising the returns to education—or, in other words, favoring brain over brawn. As such, new technologies make male advantage in physical strength ever more irrelevant, while making female time spent on childrearing and housework ever more expensive. Moreover, recent technological progress increased the efficiency of domestic activities, thereby relaxing women’s time constraints (e.g., Cavalcanti & Tavares 2008 ; Greenwood, Seshadri and Yorukoglu 2005 ). These mechanisms are plausible, but other aspects of technological change need not be equally favorable for women. In many countries, for example, the booming science, technology, and engineering sectors tend to be particularly male-intensive. And Tejani & Milberg ( 2016 ) provide evidence for developing countries that as manufacturing industries become more capital intensive, their female employment share decreases.

Even if current technological progress is assumed to weaken gender gaps, historically, technology may have played exactly the opposite role. If technology today is more complementary to brain, in the past it could have been more complementary to brawn. An example is the plow that, relative to alternative technologies for field preparation (e.g., hoe, digging stick), requires upper body strength, on which men have a comparative advantage over women (Alesina, Giuliano and Nunn 2013 ; Boserup 1970 ). Another, even more striking example, is the invention of agriculture itself—the Neolithic Revolution. The transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to sedentary agriculture involved a relative loss of status for women (Dyble et al. 2015 ; Hansen, Jensen and Skovsgaard 2015 ). One explanation is that property rights on land were captured by men, who had an advantage on physical strength and, consequently, on physical violence. Thus, in the long view of human history, technological change appears to have shifted from being male-biased towards being female-biased. Endogeneizing technological progress and its interaction with gender inequality is a promising avenue for future research.

Fourth, open economy issues are still almost entirely absent. An exception is Rees & Riezman ( 2012 ), who model the effect of globalization on economic growth. Whether global capital flows generate jobs primarily in female or male intensive sectors matters for long-run growth. If globalization creates job opportunities for women, their bargaining power increases and households trade off child quantity by child quality. Fertility falls, human capital accumulates, and long-run per capita output is high. If, on the other hand, globalization creates jobs for men, their intra-household power increases; fertility increases, human capital decreases, and steady-state income per capita is low. The literature would benefit from engaging with open economy demand-driven models of the feminist tradition, such as Blecker & Seguino ( 2002 ), Seguino ( 2010 ). Other fruitful avenues for future research on open economy macro concern gender analysis of global value chains (Barrientos 2019 ), gendered patterns of international migration (Cortes 2015 ; Cortes & Tessada 2011 ), and the diffusion of gender norms through globalization (Beine, Docquier and Schiff 2013 ; Klasen 2020 ; Tuccio & Wahba 2018 ).

A final point concerns the role of men in this literature. In most theoretical models, gender inequality is not the result of an active male project that seeks the domination of women. Instead, inequality emerges as a rational best response to some underlying gender gap in endowments or constraints. Then, as the underlying gap becomes less relevant—for example, due to skill-biased technological change—, men passively relinquish their power (see Doepke & Tertilt 2009 , for an exception). There is never a male backlash against the short-term power loss that necessarily comes with female empowerment. In reality, it is more likely that men actively oppose losing power and resources towards women (Folbre 2020 ; Kabeer 2016 ; Klasen 2020 ). This possibility has not yet been explored in formal models, even though it could threaten the typical virtuous cycle between gender equality and growth. If men are forward-looking, and the short-run losses outweigh the dynamic gains from higher growth, they might ensure that women never get empowered to begin with. Power asymmetries tend to be sticky, because “any group that is able to claim a disproportionate share of the gains from cooperation can develop social institutions to fortify their position” (Folbre 2020 , p. 199). For example, Eswaran & Malhotra ( 2011 ) set up a household decision model where men use domestic violence against their wives as a tool to enhance male bargaining power. Thus, future theories should recognize more often that men have a vested interest on the process of female empowerment.

More generally, policymakers should pay attention to the possibility of a male backlash as an unintended consequence of female empowerment policies (Erten & Keskin 2018 ; Eswaran & Malhotra 2011 ). Likewise, whereas most theories reviewed here link lower fertility to higher economic growth, the relationship is non-monotonic. Fertility levels below the replacement rate will eventually generate aggregate social costs in the form of smaller future workforces, rapidly ageing societies, and increased pressure on welfare systems, to name a few.

Many theories presented in this survey make another important practical point: public policies should recognize that gender gaps in separate dimensions complement and reinforce one another and, therefore, have to be dealt with simultaneously. A naïve policy targeting a single gap in isolation is unlikely to have substantial growth effects in the short run. Typically, inequalities in separate dimensions are not independent from each other (Agénor 2017 ; Bandiera & Does 2013 ; Duflo 2012 ; Kabeer 2016 ). For example, if credit-constrained women face weak property rights, are unable to access certain markets, and have mobility and time constraints, then the marginal return to capital may nevertheless be larger for men. Similarly, the return to male education may well be above the female return if demand for female labor is low or concentrated in sectors with low productivity. In sum, “the fact that women face multiple constraints means that relaxing just one may not improve outcomes” (Duflo 2012 , p. 1076).

Promising policy directions that would benefit from further macroeconomic research are the role of public investments in physical infrastructure and care provision (Agénor 2017 ; Braunstein, Bouhia and Seguino 2020 ), gender-based taxation (Guner, Kaygusuz and Ventura 2012 ; Meier & Rainer 2015 ), and linkages between gender equality and pro-environmental agendas (Matsumoto 2014 ).

See Echevarria & Moe ( 2000 ) for a similar complaint that “theories of economic growth and development have consistently neglected to include gender as a variable” (p. 77).

A non-exhaustive list includes Bandiera & Does ( 2013 ), Braunstein ( 2013 ), Cuberes & Teignier ( 2014 ), Duflo ( 2012 ), Kabeer ( 2016 ), Kabeer & Natali ( 2013 ), Klasen ( 2018 ), Seguino ( 2013 , 2020 ), Sinha et al. ( 2007 ), Stotsky ( 2006 ), World Bank ( 2001 , 2011 ).

For an in-depth history of “new home economics” see Grossbard-Shechtman ( 2001 ) and Grossbard ( 2010 , 2011 ).

For recent empirical reviews see Duflo ( 2012 ) and Doss ( 2013 ).

Although the unitary approach has being rejected on theoretical (e.g., Echevarria & Moe 2000 ; Folbre 1986 ; Knowles 2013 ; Sen 1989 ) and empirical grounds (e.g., Doss 2013 ; Duflo 2003 ; Lundberg et al. 1997 ), these early models are foundational to the subsequent literature. As it turns out, some of the key mechanisms survive in non-unitary theories of the household.

For nice conceptual perspectives on conflict and cooperation in households see Sen ( 1989 ), Grossbard ( 2011 ), and Folbre ( 2020 ).

The relationship depicted in Fig. 1 is robust to using other composite measures of gender equality (e.g., UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index or OECD’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) (see Branisa, Klasen and Ziegler 2013 )), and other years besides 2000. In Fig. 2 , the linear prediction explains 56 percent of the cross-country variation in per capita income.

See Seguino ( 2013 , 2020 ) for a review of this literature.

The model allows for sorting on ability (“some people are better teachers”) or sorting on occupation-specific preferences (“others derive more utility from working as a teacher”) (Hsieh et al. 2019 , p. 1441). Here, we restrict our presentation to the case where sorting occurs primarily on ability. The authors find little empirical support for sorting on preferences.

Because the home sector is treated as any other occupation, the model can capture, in a reduced-form fashion, social norms on women’s labor force participation. For example, a social norm on traditional gender roles can be represented as a utility premium obtained by all women working on the home sector.

Note, however, that discrimination against women raises productivity in the non-agricultural sector. The reason is that the few women who end up working outside agriculture are positively selected on talent. Lee ( 2020 ) shows that this countervailing effect is modest and dominated by the loss of productivity in agriculture.

This is not the classic Beckerian quantity-quality trade-off because parents cannot invest in the quality of their children. Instead, the mechanism is built by assumption in the household’s utility function. When women’s wages increase relative to male wages, the substitution effect dominates the income effect.

The hypothesis that female labor force participation and economic development have a U-shaped relationship—known as the feminization-U hypothesis—goes back to Boserup ( 1970 ). See also Goldin ( 1995 ). Recently, Gaddis & Klasen ( 2014 ) find only limited empirical support for the feminization-U.

The model does not consider fertility decisions. Parents derive utility from their children’s human capital (social status utility). When household income increases, parents want to “consume” more social status by investing in their children’s education—this is the positive income effect.

Bloom et al. ( 2015 ) build their main model with unitary households, but show that the key conclusions are robust to a collective representation of the household.

This assumption does not necessarily mean that boys are more talented than girls. It can be also interpreted as a reduced-form way of capturing labor market discrimination against women.

Many empirical studies are in line with this assumption, which is rooted in evolutionary psychology. See Strulik ( 2019 ) for references. There are several other evolutionary arguments for men wanting more children (including with different women). See, among others, Mulder & Rauch ( 2009 ), Penn & Smith ( 2007 ), von Rueden & Jaeggi ( 2016 ). However, for a different view, see Fine ( 2017 ).

They do not model fertility decisions. So there is no quantity-quality trade-off.

In their empirical application, Heath & Tan ( 2020 ) study the Hindu Succession Act, which, through improved female inheritance rights, increased the lifetime unearned income of Indian women. Other policies consistent with the model are, for example, unconditional cash transfers to women.

De la Croix & Vander Donckt ( 2010 ) show this with numerical simulations, because the interior regime becomes analytically intractable.

We focus on gender-related policies in our presentation, but the article simulates additional public policies.

Agénor and Agénor ( 2014 ) develop a similar model, but with unitary households, and Agénor and Canuto ( 2015 ) have a similar model of collective households for Brazil, where adult women can also invest time in human capital formation. Since public infrastructure substitutes for women’s time in home production, more (or better) infrastructure can free up time for female human capital accumulation and, thus, endogenously increase wives’ bargaining power.

Voigtländer and Voth ( 2013 ) justify this assumption arguing that, in England, employment contracts for farm servants working in animal husbandry were conditional on celibacy. However, see Edwards & Ogilvie ( 2018 ) for a critique of this assumption.

The bride-price under individual consent need not be paid explicitly as a lump-sum transfer. It could, instead, be paid to the bride implicitly in the form of higher lifetime consumption.

In Tertilt ( 2005 ), all men are similar (except in age). Widespread polygyny is possible because older men marry younger women and population growth is high. This setup reflects stylized facts for Sub-Saharan Africa. It differs from models that assume male heterogeneity in endowments, where polygyny emerges because a rich male elite owns several wives, while poor men remain single (e.g., Gould, Moav and Simhon 2008 ; Lagerlöf 2005 , 2010 ).

See Grossbard ( 2015 ) for more details and extensions of this model and Grossbard ( 2018 ) for a non-technical overview of the related literature. For an earlier application, see Grossbard ( 1976 ).

The concept of WiHo is closely related but not equivalent to the ‘black-box’ term home production used by much of the literature. It also relates to feminist perspectives on care and social reproduction labor (c.f. Folbre 1994 ).

In the general setup, the model need not lead to a corner solution where only one spouse specializes in WiHo.

For promising approaches, see, among others, Cubeddu and Ríos-Rull ( 2003 ), Goussé, Jacquemet and Robin ( 2017 ), Greenwood, Guner, Kocharkov and Santos ( 2016 ), Guler, Guvenen and Violante ( 2012 ), Walther ( 2017 ), Wong ( 2016 ).

Agénor, P.-R. (2017). A computable overlapping generations model for gender and growth policy analysis. Macroeconomic Dynamics , 21 (1), 11–54.

Article   Google Scholar  

Agénor, P.-R., & Agénor, M. (2014). Infrastructure, women’s time allocation, and economic development. Journal of Economics , 113 (1), 1–30.

Agénor, P.-R., & Canuto, O. (2015). Gender equality and economic growth in Brazil: A long-run analysis. Journal of Macroeconomics , 43 , 155–172.

Alesina, A., Giuliano, P., & Nunn, N. (2013). On the origins of gender roles: women and the plough. Quarterly Journal of Economics , 128 (2), 469–530.

Ashraf, N., Field, E., & Lee, J. (2014). Household bargaining and excess fertility: an experimental study in Zambia. American Economic Review , 104 (7), 2210–2237.

Bandiera, O., & Does, A. N. (2013). Does gender inequality hinder development and economic growth? evidence and policy implications. World Bank Research Observer , 28 (1), 2–21.

Barrientos, S. (2019). Gender and work in global value chains: Capturing the gains? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Becker, G. S. (1960). An economic analysis of fertility. In Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries . Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 209–240.

Becker, G. S. (1981). A treatise on the family . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Google Scholar  

Becker, G. S., & Barro, R. J. (1988). A reformulation of the economic theory of fertility. Quarterly Journal of Economics , 103 (1), 1–26.

Beine, M., Docquier, F., & Schiff, M. (2013). International migration, transfer of norms and home country fertility. Canadian Journal of Economics , 46 (4), 1406–1430.

Blecker, R. A., & Seguino, S. (2002). Macroeconomic effects of reducing gender wage inequality in an export-oriented, semi-industrialized economy. Review of Development Economics , 6 (1), 103–119.

Bloom, D. E., Kuhn, M., & Prettner, K. (2015). The Contribution of Female Health to Economic Development . NBER Working Paper 21411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.

Borella, M., De Nardi, M., & Yang, F. (2018). The aggregate implications of gender and marriage. The Journal of the Economics of Ageing , 11 , 6–26.

Boserup, E. (1970). Woman’s role in economic development . London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.

Branisa, B., Klasen, S., & Ziegler, M. (2013). Gender inequality in social institutions and gendered development outcomes. World Development , 45 , 252–268.

Braunstein, E. (2013). Gender, growth and employment. Development , 56 (1), 103–113.

Braunstein, E., Bouhia, R., & Seguino, S. (2020). Social reproduction, gender equality and economic growth. Cambridge Journal of Economics , 44 (1), 129–156.

Carmichael, S. G., de Pleijt, A., van Zanden, J. L., & De Moor, T. (2016). The European marriage pattern and its measurement. Journal of Economic History , 76 (01), 196–204.

Cavalcanti, T., & Tavares, J. (2016). The output cost of gender discrimination: a model-based macroeconomics estimate. Economic Journal , 126 (590), 109–134.

Cavalcanti, T. Vd. V., & Tavares, J. (2008). Assessing the "Engines of Liberation”: Home Appliances and Female Labor Force Participation. The Review of Economics and Statistics , 90 (1), 81–88.

Cortes, P. (2015). The feminization of international migration and its effects on the children left behind: evidence from the Philippines. World Development , 65 , 62–78.

Cortes, P., & Tessada, J. (2011). Low-skilled immigration and the labor supply of highly skilled women. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 3 (3), 88–123.

Cubeddu, L., & Ríos-Rull, J.-V. (2003). Families as shocks. Journal of the European Economic Association , 1 (2–3), 671–682.

Cuberes, D., & Teignier, M. (2014). Gender inequality and economic growth: a critical review. Journal of International Development , 26 (2), 260–276.

Cuberes, D., & Teignier, M. (2016). Aggregate effects of gender gaps in the labor market: a quantitative estimate. Journal of Human Capital , 10 (1), 1–32.

Cuberes, D., & Teignier, M. (2017). Macroeconomic costs of gender gaps in a model with entrepreneurship and household production. The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics , 18 (1), 20170031.

De la Croix, D., & VanderDonckt, M. (2010). Would empowering women initiate the demographic transition in least developed countries? Journal of Human Capital , 4 (2), 85–129.

De Moor, T., & Van Zanden, J. L. (2010). Girl power: The European marriage pattern and labour markets in the north sea region in the late medieval and early modern period. Economic History Review , 63 (1), 1–33.

Dennison, T., & Ogilvie, S. (2014). Does the European marriage pattern explain economic growth? Journal of Economic History , 74 (3), 651–693.

Diebolt, C., & Perrin, F. (2013). From stagnation to sustained growth: the role of female empowerment. American Economic Review , 103 (3), 545–549.

Doepke, M., & Kindermann, F. (2019). Bargaining over babies: Theory, evidence, and policy implications. American Economic Review , 109 (9), 3264–3306.

Doepke, M., & Tertilt, M. (2009). Women’s Liberation: What’s in It for Men? Quarterly Journal of Economics , 124 (4), 1541–1591.

Doepke, M., & Tertilt, M. (2016). Families in macroeconomics. In J. B. Taylor and H. Uhlig (eds.), Handbook of Macroeconomics , vol. 2, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 1789–1891.

Doepke, M., & Tertilt, M. (2019). Does female empowerment promote economic development? Journal of Economic Growth , 24 (4), 309–343.

Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., & Voena, A. (2012). The economics and politics of women’s rights. Annual Review of Economics , 4 (1), 339–372.

Doss, C. (2013). Intrahousehold bargaining and resource allocation in developing countries. The World Bank Research Observer , 28 (1), 52–78.

Du, Q., & Wei, S.-J. (2013). A theory of the competitive saving motive. Journal of International Economics , 91 (2), 275–289.

Duflo, E. (2003). Grandmothers and granddaughters: old-age pensions and intrahousehold allocation in South Africa. The World Bank Economic Review , 17 (1), 1–25.

Duflo, E. (2012). Women empowerment and economic development. Journal of Economic Literature , 50 (4), 1051–1079.

Dyble, M., Salali, G. D., Chaudhary, N., Page, A., Smith, D., Thompson, J., Vinicius, L., Mace, R., & Migliano, A. B. (2015). Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands. Science , 348 (6236), 796–798.

Echevarria, C., & Moe, K. S. (2000). On the need for gender in dynamic models. Feminist Economics , 6 (2), 77–96.

Edlund, L., & Lagerlöf, N.-P. (2006). Individual versus parental consent in marriage: implications for intra-household resource allocation and growth. American Economic Review , 96 (2), 304–307.

Edwards, J., & Ogilvie, S. (2018). Did the Black Death cause economic development by “inventing” fertility restriction? CESifo Working Papers 7016, Munich.

Erten, B., & Keskin, P. (2018). For better or for worse? Education and the prevalence of domestic violence in Turkey. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 10 (1), 64–105.

Esteve-Volart, B. (2009). Gender discrimination and growth: theory and evidence from India . Mimeo: York University.

Eswaran, M., & Malhotra, N. (2011). Domestic violence and women’s autonomy in developing countries: theory and evidence. Canadian Journal of Economics , 44 (4), 1222–1263.

Fine, C. (2017). Testosterone rex: Myths of sex, science, and society . New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.

Folbre, N. (1986). Hearts and spades: paradigms of household economics. World Development , 14 (2), 245–255.

Folbre, N. (1994). Who pays for the kids: gender and the structures of constraint . New York: Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Folbre, N. (2020). Cooperation & conflict in the patriarchal labyrinth. Daedalus , 149 (1), 198–212.

Gaddis, I., & Klasen, S. (2014). Economic development, structural change, and women’s labor force participation. Journal of Population Economics , 27 (3), 639–681.

Galor, O. (2005a). From stagnation to growth: unified growth theory. Handbook of Economic Growth , vol. 1, North-Holland: Elsevier, pp. 171–293.

Galor, O. (2005b). The demographic transition and the emergence of sustained economic growth. Journal of the European Economic Association , 3 (2-3), 494–504.

Galor, O., & Weil, D. N. (1996). The gender gap, fertility, and growth. American Economic Review , 86 (3), 374–387.

Goldin, C. (1995). The U-shaped female labor force function in economic development and economic history. In T. P. Schultz (ed.), Investment in Women’s Human Capital and Economic Development . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 61–90.

Gould, E. D., Moav, O., & Simhon, A. (2008). The mystery of monogamy. American Economic Review , 98 (1), 333–57.

Goussé, M., Jacquemet, N., & Robin, J.-M. (2017). Household labour supply and the marriage market in the UK, 1991-2008. Labour Economics , 46 , 131–149.

Greenwood, J., Guner, N., Kocharkov, G., & Santos, C. (2016). Technology and the changing family: a unified model of marriage, divorce, educational attainment, and married female labor-force participation. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics , 8 (1), 1–41.

Greenwood, J., Guner, N., & Vandenbroucke, G. (2017). Family economics writ large. Journal of Economic Literature , 55 (4), 1346–1434.

Greenwood, J., Seshadri, A., & Yorukoglu, M. (2005). Engines of liberation. Review of Economic Studies , 72 (1), 109–133.

Grimm, M. (2003). Family and economic growth: a review. Mathematical Population Studies , 10 (3), 145–173.

Grossbard, A. (1976). An economic analysis of polygyny: The case of Maiduguri. Current Anthropology , 17 (4), 701–707.

Grossbard, S. (2010). How “Chicagoan” are Gary Becker’s Economic Models of Marriage? Journal of the History of Economic Thought , 32 (3), 377–395.

Grossbard, S. (2011). Independent individual decision-makers in household models and the New Home Economics. In J. A. Molina (ed.), Household Economic Behaviors . New York, NY: Springer, pp. 41–56.

Grossbard, S. (2015). The Marriage Motive: A Price Theory of Marriage. How Marriage Markets Affect Employment, Consumption, and Savings . New York, NY: Springer.

Grossbard, S. (2018). Marriage and Marriage Markets. In S. L. Averett, L. M. Argys and S. D. Hoffman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and the Economy . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 55–74.

Grossbard, S., & Pereira, A. M. (2015). Savings, Marriage, and Work-in-Household. In S. Grossbard, The Marriage Motive . New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 191–209.

Grossbard-Shechtman, A. (1984). A theory of allocation of time in markets for labour and marriage. The Economic Journal , 94 (376), 863–882.

Grossbard-Shechtman, S. (2001). The new home economics at Colombia and Chicago. Feminist Economics , 7 (3), 103–130.

Guinnane, T. W. (2011). The historical fertility transition: a guide for economists. Journal of Economic Literature , 49 (3), 589–614.

Guler, B., Guvenen, F., & Violante, G. L. (2012). Joint-search theory: new opportunities and new frictions. Journal of Monetary Economics , 59 (4), 352–369.

Guner, N., Kaygusuz, R., & Ventura, G. (2012). Taxation and household labour supply. The Review of Economic Studies , 79 (3), 1113–1149.

Guvenen, F., & Rendall, M. (2015). Women’s emancipation through education: a macroeconomic analysis. Review of Economic Dynamics , 18 (4), 931–956.

Hajnal, J. (1965). European Marriage Patterns in Perspective. In D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley (eds.), Population in History: Essays in Historical Demography , 6 . London: Edward Arnold Ltd, pp. 101–143.

Hajnal, J. (1982). Two kinds of preindustrial household formation system. Population and Development Review , 8 (3), 449–494.

Hansen, C. W., Jensen, P. S., & Skovsgaard, C. V. (2015). Modern gender roles and agricultural history: the neolithic inheritance. Journal of Economic Growth , 20 (4), 365–404.

Hartman, M. S. (2004). The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hazan, M., & Zoabi, H. (2015). Sons or daughters? Sex preferences and the reversal of the gender educational gap. Journal of Demographic Economics , 81 (2), 179–201.

Heath, R., & Tan, X. (2020). Intrahousehold bargaining, female autonomy, and labor supply: theory and evidence from India. Journal of the European Economic Association , 18 (4), 1928–1968.

Hiller, V. (2014). Gender inequality, endogenous cultural norms, and economic development. Scandinavian Journal of Economics , 116 (2), 455–481.

Hsieh, C.-T., Hurst, E., Jones, C. I., & Klenow, P. J. (2019). The allocation of talent and US economic growth. Econometrica , 87 (5), 1439–1474.

Kabeer, N. (2016). Gender equality, economic growth, and women’s agency: the “endless variety” and “monotonous similarity” of patriarchal constraints. Feminist Economics , 22 (1), 295–321.

Kabeer, N., & Natali, L. (2013). Gender Equality and Economic Growth: Is there a Win-Win? IDS Working Papers 417. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

Kimura, M., & Yasui, D. (2010). The Galor-Weil gender-gap model revisited: from home to market. Journal of Economic Growth , 15 , 323–351.

Klasen, S. (2018). The impact of gender inequality on economic performance in developing countries. Annual Review of Resource Economics , 10 , 279–298.

Klasen, S. (2020). From ‘MeToo’ to Boko Haram: a survey of levels and trends of gender inequality in the world. World Development , 128 , 104862.

Knowles, J. A. (2013). Why are married men working so much? An aggregate analysis of intra-household bargaining and labour supply. Review of Economic Studies , 80 (3), 1055–1085.

Lagerlöf, N.-P. (2003). Gender equality and long-run growth. Journal of Economic Growth , 8 , 403–426.

Lagerlöf, N.-P. (2005). Sex, equality, and growth. Canadian Journal of Economics , 38 (3), 807–831.

Lagerlöf, N.-P. (2010). Pacifying monogamy. Journal of Economic Growth , 15 (3), 235–262.

Lee, M. (2020). Allocation of Female Talent and Cross-Country Productivity Differences . Mimeo: UC San Diego.

Lucas, R. E. (1988). On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics , 22 (1), 3–42.

Lundberg, S. J., Pollak, R. A., & Wales, T. J. (1997). Do husbands and wives pool their resources? Evidence from the United Kingdom child benefit. Journal of Human Resources , 32 (3), 463–480.

Martineau, H. (1837). Society in America , vol. 3. London: Saunders & Otley.

Matsumoto, S. (2014). Spouses’ time allocation to pro-environmental activities: Who is saving the environment at home? Review of Economics of the Household , 12 (1), 159–176.

Meier, V., & Rainer, H. (2015). Pigou meets Ramsey: gender-based taxation with non-cooperative couples. European Economic Review , 77 , 28–46.

Mulder, M. B., & Rauch, K. L. (2009). Sexual conflict in humans: variations and solutions. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews , 18 (5), 201–214.

Penn, D. J., & Smith, K. R. (2007). Differential fitness costs of reproduction between the sexes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 104 (2), 553–558.

Prettner, K., & Strulik, H. (2017). Gender equity and the escape from poverty. Oxford Economic Papers , 69 (1), 55–74.

Rees, R., & Riezman, R. (2012). Globalization, gender, and growth. Review of Income and Wealth , 58 (1), 107–117.

Reher, D. S. (2004). The demographic transition revisited as a global process. Population, Space and Place , 10 (1), 19–41.

Roy, A. D. (1951). Some thoughts on the distribution of earnings. Oxford Economic Papers , 3 (2), 135–146.

Ruggles, S. (2009). Reconsidering the Northwest European Family System: Living Arrangements of the Aged in Comparative Historical Perspective. Population and Development Review , 35 (2), 249–273.

Seguino, S. (2010). Gender, distribution, and balance of payments constrained growth in developing countries. Review of Political Economy , 22 (3), 373–404.

Seguino, S. (2013). From micro-level gender relations to the macro economy and back again. In D. M. Figart and T. L. Warnecke (eds.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life . Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 325–344.

Seguino, S. (2020). Engendering macroeconomic theory and policy. Feminist Economics , 26 , 27–61.

Sen, A. (1989). Cooperation, inequality, and the family. Population and Development Review , 15 , 61–76.

Sinha, N., Raju, D., & Morrison, A. (2007). Gender equality, poverty and economic growth . World Bank Policy Research Paper 4349. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Stotsky, J. G. (2006). Gender and its relevance to macroeconomic policy: a survey . IMF Working Paper 06/233. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund.

Strulik, H. (2019). Desire and development. Macroeconomic Dynamics , 23 (7), 2717–2747.

Tejani, S., & Milberg, W. (2016). Global defeminization? Industrial upgrading and manufacturing employment in developing countries. Feminist Economics , 22 (2), 24–54.

Tertilt, M. (2005). Polygyny, fertility, and savings. Journal of Political Economy , 113 (6), 1341–1371.

Tertilt, M. (2006). Polygyny, women’s rights, and development. Journal of the European Economic Association , 4 , 523–530.

Tuccio, M., & Wahba, J. (2018). Return migration and the transfer of gender norms: evidence from the Middle East. Journal of Comparative Economics , 46 (4), 1006–1029.

Voigtländer, N., & Voth, H.-J. (2013). How the West “invented” fertility restriction. American Economic Review , 103 (6), 2227–2264.

von Rueden, C. R., & Jaeggi, A. V. (2016). Men’s status and reproductive success in 33 nonindustrial societies: effects of subsistence, marriage system and reproductive strategy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 113 (39), 10824–10829.

Walther, S. (2017). Moral hazard in marriage: the use of domestic labor as an incentive device. Review of Economics of the Household , 15 (2), 357–382.

Wong, H.-P. C. (2016). Credible commitments and marriage: when the homemaker gets her share at divorce. Journal of Demographic Economics , 82 (3), 241–279.

World Bank (2001). Engendering Development Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

World Bank (2011). World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development . Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Zhang, J., Zhang, J., & Li, T. (1999). Gender bias and economic development in an endogenous growth model. Journal of Development Economics , 59 (2), 497–525.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Editor, Shoshana Grossbard, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) initiative, a multi-funder partnership between the UK’s Department for International Development, the Hewlett Foundation and the International Development Research Centre. All views expressed here and remaining errors are our own. Manuel dedicates this article to Stephan Klasen, in loving memory.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Economics, University of Goettingen, Platz der Goettinger Sieben 3, 37073, Goettingen, Germany

Manuel Santos Silva & Stephan Klasen

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manuel Santos Silva .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Santos Silva, M., Klasen, S. Gender inequality as a barrier to economic growth: a review of the theoretical literature. Rev Econ Household 19 , 581–614 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09535-6

Download citation

Received : 27 May 2019

Accepted : 07 December 2020

Published : 15 January 2021

Issue Date : September 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09535-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Gender equality
• Economic growth
• Human capital
• Comparative development

JEL classification

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• High contrast
• Press Centre

Search UNICEF

Tackling gender inequality in a climate-changed world, agrifood and social protection systems can empower women and girls to build climate resilience..

Uganda, 2024: Charity Naturinda, attends to her mother’s vegetable stall at their home. Due to a disability in the leg, she had dropped out of school, but was able to go back after joining the GEG (Girls Empowering Girls) programme - the first urban social protection programme in Uganda targeting vulnerable adolescent girls.

Air pollution, rising temperatures, crop failures, and water shortages are increasing pressures on health and agrifood systems. During these crises, households often reduce food consumption, sell assets, migrate or adjust labor allocation between men and women. Women and children are at greater risk of food insecurity due to lower access to and control of productive resources, services, household decision-making, income allocation, and perceived expendability.

Climate shocks affect women and girls more

Female-headed households lose 8 per cent more income due to heat stress and 3 per cent more due to floods. This causes lower off-farm income and significant reductions in livestock holdings and agricultural expenditures. Women do not have an adequate level of education, have limited access to infrastructure and markets, and perform the biggest share of unpaid care and support work. Resource constraints can limit women’s non-agricultural employment prospects, their ability to adapt and increase their vulnerability. Moderate or severe food insecurity among adult women rose from 27.5 per cent in 2019 to 31.9 per cent in 2021.

Children, especially girls, experience similar hardships. Altered rainfall patterns have led to girls spending more time fetching wood and water over longer distances and taking on additional domestic labor, leading to increased exposure to violence and a higher likelihood of missing school. Adolescent girls are more likely to be forced to marry to alleviate financial difficulties caused by extreme weather events. Climate-related displacement also places pressures on social and health services such as menstrual hygiene and sexual and reproductive health. 

Overcoming structural gender inequalities and barriers is fundamental for climate-resilient development. Inclusive and gender-responsive social protection and agrifood systems can provide access to resources, services, and economic opportunities for women and girls to build their resilience in the face of climate change. 

Under a worst-case climate scenario, up to 158.3 million more women and girls could be pushed into poverty by mid-century, exceeding the number of men and boys by at least 16 million.

Adaptive and gender-responsive social protection systems

Long-term investments in social protection systems and short-term adaptations can help women and girls  reduce their vulnerability to climate or economic shocks. Some adaptations measures include:

• cash and in-kind assistance alongside livelihood diversification
• connections to early warning systems and anticipatory action
• linkages for women and girls to access to social services, including health insurance

Social assistance helps households meet their basic needs and improve their coping responses. This facilitates the uptake of climate-adaptive practices and reduces the need for maladaptive actions like child marriage that often disproportionately harm women and girls.

Combining social protection instruments such as labor market policies with agriculture skills development and climate insurance can support the delivery of adaptation measures and help address inequalities women and girls may face in the green transition . This is possible only when adaptation measures are gender-responsive and age-sensitive, thus not increasing women’s and girls' time burden or reinforcing households' discriminatory divisions of labor.

It has been demonstrated that investments that improve access to social protection and decrease poverty can considerably reduce overall climate risk for 310 million children. For this reason, UNICEF, with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development ( BMZ ) has initiated a 5-year evidence-collection process through the project ASPECT – Adaptive Social Protection: Evidence for Child Outcomes in fragile settings. Focused on fragile contexts, this project aims to generate evidence on the contributions of adaptive social protection in building the resilience of households to climate-related and other shocks for achieving better outcomes for children and their families.

Inclusive and gender-responsive agrifood systems

Agrifood systems represent a pivotal source of livelihood and are a major employer for women globally. In South Asia, 71 per cent of women work in agrifood systems, compared to 47 per cent of men. Projections suggest that if half the small-scale producers benefited from women’s empowerment within agrifood systems, the incomes of an additional 58 million people and the resilience of 235 million people could be enhanced .

Evidence has shown that gender-responsive interventions in agrifood systems are successful in strengthening resilience through:

• community-based approaches
• policy engagement
• increased access for women to essential resources, and
• services and social protection

Community-based approaches foster capacity development tailored to women's needs and enhance access to information, resources, finance, and collective agency.

Access to financial and advisory services can help build resilience; digitalization can further address mobility constraints and improve financial autonomy. For instance, IFAD's (International Fund for Agricultural Development) Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme ( ASAP+ ) has introduced sustainable technologies for gender-sensitive, climate-resilient agricultural practices while ensuring that women and girls constitute at least 50 per cent of the beneficiaries. Through these efforts, IFAD helps break down barriers that prevent women from realizing their full potential in rural societies. 

5 ways to adaptation

Climate financing should be directed towards inclusive agrifood and social protection systems by adopting an integrated approach, and formulating gender-responsive and transformative innovations that are locally informed and tailored to the needs and preferences of women and adolescent girls.

UNICEF, IFAD, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), and IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) call on policymakers, multilateral donors, and international organizations to:

• Adopt and finance inclusive, gender-transformative, and adaptive social protection and agrifood systems for building the climate resilience of women, girls, and other at-risk groups.
• Ensure agrifood and social protection systems are designed with an inclusive gender, age, and disability lens to capture the needs of those facing specific risks due to social and economic vulnerabilities and exclusion.
• Improve women’s and girls' access to these systems to equip them with natural and productive resources, services, employment opportunities, social assistance and insurance.
• Collect, analyze and disseminate data disaggregated by gender, age and other social characteristics to generate evidence for guiding inclusive policies and investments related to climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience building.

Support gender-responsive budgeting for climate action to ensure adequate financial resources are allocated towards gender equality, including the empowerment of women and girls.

Clara Ceravolo is Social Protection and Gender Consultant, UNICEF. Ilaria Sisto is Gender and Development Officer, FAO. Lauren Whitehead is Social Protection and Gender Lead, UNICEF. Matthew Walsham is Social Protection Specialist (Climate), FAO. Morane Verhoeven is Gender and Social Inclusion Consultant, IFAD. Shalini Roy is Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI.

UNICEF Blog

The UNICEF Blog promotes children’s rights and well-being, and ideas about ways to improve their lives and the lives of their families. We bring you insights and opinions from the world's leading child rights experts and accounts from UNICEF's staff on the ground in more than 190 countries and territories. The opinions expressed on the UNICEF Blog are those of the author(s) and may not necessarily reflect UNICEF's official position.

Explore our blog topics:

Related topics, more on the blog, the climate crisis is a child rights crisis.

Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index

Children call for access to quality climate education

On Earth Day, UNICEF urges governments to empower every child with learning opportunities to be a champion for the planet

Teachers wanted

Empowering teachers at the forefront of the learning crisis

The urgent need for a child-centred Loss and Damage Fund

The Loss and Damage Fund should put children’s voices at the heart of climate justice

Myra Marx Ferree: 2024 Centennial Medal Citation

Share this page

Over the past several decades, the study of women, gender, and sexuality has transformed the face of the social sciences—and Myra Marx Ferree is one of the pioneers in sociology who made this seismic change a reality. Through her influential work on gender, family, and social movements; her focus on intersectionality and inequality; her expertise across American and European contexts; and her steadfast commitment to academic service, teaching, and mentorship, Ferree has profoundly shaped our understanding of gender in the modern Western world. 

Ferree studied at the University of Hamburg in West Germany before completing her bachelor’s degree in political science at Bryn Mawr College in 1971. At Harvard, she pursued interdisciplinary graduate work in the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, earning her PhD in 1976. Ferree spent the first half of her career as a professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Connecticut; in 2000, she joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is now Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology emerita. In addition, Ferree remains active as a seminar co-chair at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard. 

Ferree’s publications have charted a course for gender studies within the field of sociology. Her books include Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Context , which won the Victoria Schuck Award for the best book in gender and politics from the American Political Science Association, and the bestselling textbook Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions , coauthored with Lisa Wade, which has been taught at more than 400 universities and colleges and hailed as the “new gold standard” for gender studies courses. “Myra combines important original research with strategic know-how essential to institutionalizing a new field of knowledge,” observes Michèle Lamont, professor of sociology and African and African American studies and Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies. “Moved by strong moral and intellectual imperatives, she is now widely recognized for her exceptional generativity in addressing conceptual and empirical blind-spots. She is a powerful and effective intellectual change agent.” 

Ferree brings sensitive topics into sharper analytical focus. In 2002, she coauthored Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States , which examines different narratives that frame abortion as a social issue in both Europe and America—an influential work that won a Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association. “Myra talks about things that other people don’t talk about,” explains Gökce Yurdakul, professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin and a former visiting scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. “She’s one of the rare people who can do comparative research in Europe and America on divisive issues that concern society today. That’s why she is so respected in both gender studies and in sociology: she’s a brilliant researcher, she’s not afraid to talk about issues that make people uncomfortable, she’s methodologically very meticulous, she can do comparative work, and it’s groundbreaking.” 

Ferree has been particularly influential in her work on intersectionality, or the understanding of how different layers of identity—gender, race, class—compound and intersect in institutional dynamics of power. Her 2010 article, “Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research,” coauthored with Hae Yeon Choo, has been cited more than a thousand times. Ferree also brings an intersectional perspective to her mentorship and advocacy for others. “Many of the scholars Myra has supported have been women, people of color, first-generation students, international students, or queer students who didn’t feel that their approach, thinking, methods, and theories ‘fit into’ typical sociological research fields,” observes Kathrin Zippel, professor at the Free University of Berlin and a former seminar co-chair at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center. “Myra has created space for those who didn’t feel at home. She has had a profound, enduring effect on the lives of her mentees and colleagues, and on diversifying sociology.” 

In addition to her scholarship, mentorship, and teaching, Ferree has served as president of Sociologists for Women and Society, as vice president of the American Sociological Association, and in editorial positions for a dozen journals and book series. In 2004, she received the Jessie Bernard Award, the American Sociological Association’s highest career honor for gender scholarship.  

“Myra Marx Ferree has become one of the most influential scholars of gender in the United States, and around the world,” says Frank Dobbin, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and chair of the Department of Sociology. “Her work has inspired others to take up the burning questions that motivate her, helping to make each of the fields she works in places of lively debate and active research. She has done this by mentoring, and collaborating with, an army of fantastic doctoral students, and by modeling how to be a generous and open convener and institutional leader. She is the leading light of her generation of sociologists.” 

Myra Marx Ferree , for your field-shaping, globe-spanning scholarship on feminism, family, intersectionality, and many other topics that you have helped place at the heart of sociology and gender studies, and for your profound impact as a mentor, teacher, and intellectual leader, we are proud to award you the 2024 Centennial Medal.

Photo credit: Tony Rinaldo

Get the Latest Updates

Join our newsletter, subscribe to colloquy podcast, connect with us, related news.

Game Changers: 2024 Centennial Medalists

The Centennial Medal, which recognizes those who have made fundamental and lasting contributions to knowledge, their disciplines, their colleagues, and society, is the highest honor that the Harvard Griffin GSAS bestows.

Arthur Wheelock: 2024 Centennial Medal Citation

Arthur Wheelock was awarded the 2024 Centennial Medal on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Joan Argetsinger Steitz: 2024 Centennial Medal Citation

Joan Argetsinger Steitz was awarded the 2024 Centennial Medal on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Martin Duberman: 2024 Centennial Medal Citation

Martin Duberman was awarded the 2024 Centennial Medal on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Contributed equally to this work with: Paola Belingheri, Filippo Chiarello, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, Paola Rovelli

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

• Paola Belingheri, 
• Filippo Chiarello, 
• Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, 
• Paola Rovelli

• Published: September 21, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474
• Reader Comments

9 Nov 2021: The PLOS ONE Staff (2021) Correction: Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLOS ONE 16(11): e0259930. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259930 View correction

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Citation: Belingheri P, Chiarello F, Fronzetti Colladon A, Rovelli P (2021) Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0256474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474

Editor: Elisa Ughetto, Politecnico di Torino, ITALY

Received: June 25, 2021; Accepted: August 6, 2021; Published: September 21, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Belingheri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Funding: P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t001

Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t002

Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g001

Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g002

Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g003

In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g004

There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t003

Compensation.

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making.

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression.

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance.

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization.

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital.

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

S1 text. keywords used for paper selection..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.s001

Acknowledgments

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

• View Article
• PubMed/NCBI
• Google Scholar
• 9. UN. Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. General Assembley 70 Session; 2015.
• 11. Nature. Get the Sustainable Development Goals back on track. Nature. 2020;577(January 2):7–8
• 37. Fronzetti Colladon A, Grippa F. Brand intelligence analytics. In: Przegalinska A, Grippa F, Gloor PA, editors. Digital Transformation of Collaboration. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland; 2020. p. 125–41. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233276 pmid:32442196
• 39. Griffiths TL, Steyvers M, editors. Finding scientific topics. National academy of Sciences; 2004.
• 40. Mimno D, Wallach H, Talley E, Leenders M, McCallum A, editors. Optimizing semantic coherence in topic models. 2011 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing; 2011.
• 41. Wang C, Blei DM, editors. Collaborative topic modeling for recommending scientific articles. 17th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining 2011.
• 46. Straka M, Straková J, editors. Tokenizing, pos tagging, lemmatizing and parsing ud 2.0 with udpipe. CoNLL 2017 Shared Task: Multilingual Parsing from Raw Text to Universal Dependencies; 2017.
• 49. Lu Y, Li, R., Wen K, Lu Z, editors. Automatic keyword extraction for scientific literatures using references. 2014 IEEE International Conference on Innovative Design and Manufacturing (ICIDM); 2014.
• 55. Roelleke T, Wang J, editors. TF-IDF uncovered. 31st Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval—SIGIR ‘08; 2008.
• 56. Mihalcea R, Tarau P, editors. TextRank: Bringing order into text. 2004 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing; 2004.
• 58. Iannone F, Ambrosino F, Bracco G, De Rosa M, Funel A, Guarnieri G, et al., editors. CRESCO ENEA HPC clusters: A working example of a multifabric GPFS Spectrum Scale layout. 2019 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS); 2019.
• 60. Wasserman S, Faust K. Social network analysis: Methods and applications: Cambridge University Press; 1994.
• 141. Williams JE, Best DL. Measuring sex stereotypes: A multination study, Rev: Sage Publications, Inc; 1990.
• 172. Steele CM, Aronson J. Stereotype threat and the test performance of academically successful African Americans. In: Jencks C, Phillips M, editors. The Black–White test score gap. Washington, DC: Brookings; 1998. p. 401–27

How tennis inequality lets women down: Prize money, scheduling and Saudi Arabia

This article is part of the launch of extended tennis coverage on The Athletic , which will go beyond the baseline to bring you the biggest stories on and off the court. To follow the tennis vertical, click here .

Last month at the Madrid Open, Coco Gauff was warming up on the least desirable practice courts when she saw some male players — without small numbers next to their names — on the much better courts.

Advertisement

Gauff is familiar with the misogynist history of the tournament . She partnered with compatriot Jessica Pegula against Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia in the women’s doubles final in 2023, after Azarenka and other players commented on unfair scheduling and the size disparity of birthday cakes for Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka.

Officials refused to let the foursome speak after the match.

Gauff said she had seen progress this year. But she couldn’t help but notice the weirdness: she, a Grand Slam champion and the world No 3, was warming up at an event just one rung below the U.S. Open on “really bad” courts.

“When you look out on the practice court and you see guys who are ranked 30 or 40 spots lower than you on the court, you’re like ‘OK, what happened?’” she said a few days later.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal. She played her match on the top court, in a desirable time slot. There are plenty of benefits that Gauff and a handful of other women at the top of tennis enjoy, including prize money and endorsements that can reach into the tens of millions of dollars.

Still, to exist as a female tennis player in 2024 is to endure what can feel like endless slights: the micro-aggressions baked in; the structural inequality foundational to a sport run mostly by men; stark set-piece examples of inequality that can be hard to comprehend and harder to endure, for their magnitude, their reasoning, or more commonly both.

“I get a little bit frustrated here because I feel some tournaments in Europe can fancy men more than women,” Ons Jabeur, the two-time Wimbledon finalist from Tunisia, told The Athletic in Madrid.

“I see that especially on social media, more posts about the men, more this more that and for me it’s really frustrating because we play really well. And it’s such, you know, an amazing sport for women. So I wish we can be more seen,” she said.

“I think we deserve better.”

It’s not just Europe.

Jabeur, 29, just finished playing the Italian Open, where the women competed for a prize pool of $5.5 million. The men’s equivalent was $8.5 million.

In August, the men and women arrive at the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio. The men play for $7.9 million; the women for $6.8 million, even though the tournament owner, Ben Navarro, has a daughter, Emma, who plays on the WTA Tour.

A tournament spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Consider that m ore generally, the WTA Tour’s most lucrative route to additional funding centers on being in lockstep with the ATP Tour men, over letting Saudi Arabia, a country where women do not have equal rights, pump money into tennis.

H ow else do elite women get the short end of the racket handle in the sport to which they dedicate their lives?

Let us count — just some of — the ways.

Tennis’ top women say the sport is broken. This is why

Ever the bridesmaid

It’s the final weekend of a Grand Slam tournament . The women’s singles final takes place on the Saturday. The climax arrives 24 hours later, with the men’s final.

It’s been that way basically forever. There’s an implicit message that everyone in tennis, from the little girl who just started taking lessons to the world No 1, receives.

Tournament officials often say it has to be this way. The men play best-of-five sets in the Grand Slams; the women play best-of-three . (We’ll get to that. We have thoughts.)

Whoever plays the final on Saturday has to have one day during the tournament where two players compete on consecutive days, between the second day of quarter-finals and the semi-finals. Since the men play longer matches, it wouldn’t be fair for their semi-finalists to have to play on consecutive days, would it?

Perhaps not. The French and Australian Opens now stretch their first round over three days, and the other Grand Slams could follow suit. Surely there is a permutation that allows the men and women who have reached the late stages of the peak of their sport equal rest?

Of course, there are also television contracts that exist — television contracts that get renegotiated all the time. If there is a will, perhaps there is a way.

If there is a will.

Darren Pearce, chief spokesperson for Tennis Australia, said they have looked at a swap and will continue to do so. They moved the women’s final to Saturday night in 2009 to maximize domestic exposure, but they have to consider time zones and international exposure as well. Pearce cited Australian Ash Barty ’s win in 2022  as an example of the Saturday offering “so much more coverage and exposure in Australia.”

The U.S. Open has looked at swapping the two finals “in an effort to optimize viewership and interest,” said Brendan McIntire, a USTA spokesperson.

Last week (Wednesday May 15), ESPN announced that its free-to-air broadcaster, ABC, will show the U.S. Open men’s final , though the women’s final the day before will remain on the pay channel, ESPN, because ABC has contractual commitments to college football that Saturday.

The U.S. women’s final has outperformed the men’s final four of the past five years in television viewership, and the men’s final competes with the opening weekend of the NFL. In this case, the second-class spot may be a blessing.

What about the big mixed events where both the women and the men play best-of-three sets? 

Indian Wells has a finals Sunday on which both the women and the men play — guess who plays first? Cincinnati will hold the finals on the same day this year, and we’ll see who goes first. Miami, Madrid and Rome have the women play Saturday, the men Sunday. 

“ I don’t really think that it’s just a question of money, but also respect,” Jabeur said. “ It’s small details that make the difference.” 

It happens in a macro way, too. The WTA Tour Finals take place the week before the ATP Tour Finals . The Billie Jean King Cup wraps up before the Davis Cup, although there will be overlap from this year.

Next year, Great Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association will host a women’s WTA 500 at the Queen’s Club in London . It will begin immediately after the French Open, the week before the men take the stage at Queen’s, and in the build-up the focus has been not on the benefits of a women’s tournament at such a prestigious event, but whether or not the ATP is happy that the grass will be pristine enough for male feet after a week of tennis.

There will not be equal prize money.

What's the one thing you would change about tennis?

Games, sets, and matches

Jessica Pegula, the world No 5 and a member of the WTA Player Council made it very clear at the French Open in 2022.

“I don’t want to play three out of five,” Pegula said. 

She’s hardly the only one. It’s a slog, with matches that can stretch beyond five hours, and then you have to do it all over again two days later. There is not a throng of women’s players clamoring for best-of-five tennis at the Grand Slams.

It’s still t he third rail of equality in tennis. 

Best-of-five sets only exists at the Grand Slams, where women and men compete for the same prize money — and a lot of folks complain that it’s equal pay for less work every time it comes up. It’s a prime example of another uneven dynamic, where women have to account for every possible bad-faith accusation that could emerge before opening their mouths on the biggest issues in their sport.

Duration isn’t the only element of work. Best-of-three requires immediate competitiveness, with little time for recovery. It’s not Swiatek’s fault that she is so good at plowing through the competition, and it’s no player’s fault that the best players in the men’s game might drop two sets to lesser opponents and have to claw back three.

It’s also not any WTA player’s fault that tennis audiences sometimes dismiss the variety of styles in the women’s game as “boring” — though they’re probably talking without watching. Anyone who has watched a WTA match this year, especially between Swiatek, Sabalenka, Gauff, and Rybakina would have to agree with the Pole’s comments after her Madrid final against Sabalenka.

“ Who’s gonna say now that women ‘s tennis is boring? ”

Men's grand-slam matches are 25% longer than in 1999. Does something need to change?

Stardom also fluctuates. When Wimbledon, and the French, U.S. and Australian Opens sell tickets, sponsorships and media rights, they mostly don’t sell separately for the men’s tournament and the women’s tournament. There were plenty of days and nights when Serena Williams was the featured match in New York and elsewhere, and a couple of guys were the undercard or the afterthought. In Rome this month, where men and women play best-of-three, the WTA semi-finals featured the top three players on tour and the best form player of 2024 in Danielle Collins , with the final again between world No 1 Swiatek and world No 2 Sabalenka.

The men’s semi-finalists had an average ranking of 19, with one of the finalists, Alexander Zverev, about to defend himself in a domestic abuse hearing while continuing to play . Some of that is to do with the caprices of injury and form — but they are intrinsic parts of tennis, and they don’t change the fact that the WTA Tour appears to be locking in to a generational rivalry while the ATP Tour is in relative flux.

If a similar dynamic emerges at Roland Garros, is the men’s event still qualitatively better because of two more sets?

Billie Jean King, the trailblazing Grand Slam champion and founding figurehead of the WTA Tour, is adamant: as long as there are different formats, there will be inequality.

Hang around with her even a little bit, and three phrases keep coming up.

“Same format.” “Equal content.” “Equal exposure.”

To King, if a women’s match only lasts 60 percent as long as a men’s match, then they will receive 60 percent of the television exposure as the men, and spend 60 percent of the time on the biggest courts in the biggest tournaments.

That math practically guarantees that women are less well-known and attract less money. There are exceptions — Williams, Maria Sharapova, Naomi Osaka , Emma Raducanu, Coco Gauff — but the numbers are hard to overcome. World No 1 Swiatek has recently bagged the huge sponsorships her status deserves, but it’s taken time.

Iga Swiatek's 100 weeks as world No 1: The streak, the slams, the bagels

Tournament directors say having men and women play best-of-five is impossible from a scheduling perspective. Too many too-long matches. Too few courts. And the players don’t want it.

King and others have offered a solution — best-of-three for everyone the first week; best-of-five the second. There’s precedent — 50 years ago at the French Open, the men played best-of-three for the first two rounds. Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert won their first Grand Slam titles, and you might remember that they did pretty well after that. The sun also continued to rise in the east.

The knock-on effects of the current system on scheduling also virtually guarantee more conflict and inequality — sometimes in the name of equality.

As night follows day

Tennis players of a certain age who spent time around private clubs remember times not very long ago when men got first dibs on high-demand slots. Elina Svitolina said that the men (regular players, not tour stars) still get the prime slots at the club near her home in Monte Carlo. Svitolina, top 20 in her sport, formerly a world No 3, had to practice early morning or at dusk.

Three years ago, the French Open started holding a night session with a featured singles match, which now starts at at 8:15 p.m. in the main stadium, Court Philippe Chatrier. The tournament markets it as the match of the day. The U.S. and Australian Open schedule two matches in their night sessions, until the late rounds.

During the first three years, Roland Garros organizers scheduled a total of four women’s matches at night. Amelie Mauresmo, the former women’s world No 1 and tournament director, initially justified the disparity by explaining that men’s tennis is more appealing.

She tried to walk that back but also explained that charging a premium for a session that might finish in an hour is problematic — a knock-on effect of those unequal formats that deprives top women of a primetime audience. Moving a doubles match onto Chatrier after Iga Swiatek blows through an opponent 6-0, 6-1 isn’t seen as viable.

Swiatek made it clear last year that she doesn’t care for playing at night.

“There are players who like the hype and the energy, and maybe the conditions, but for me it’s more comfortable to just have the normal day/night rhythm,” Swiatek said. “I think it’s more healthy for me to play day sessions.”

That was arguably a self-inflicted wound, as were Aryna Sabalenka’s recent comments about preferring men’s tennis . However, this also illustrates another unspoken dynamic: women have to be extra careful not to say anything denigrating about their sport, lest they get criticized for not supporting fellow players, even though a top men’s player saying something about their sport would likely not be considered an existential threat to its repute.

It’s also rare that male players speak up. Andy Murray’s corrections of journalists’ “first…” stats are an exception: the three-time Grand Slam champion has routinely reminded journalists of their forgetting about the Williams sisters, most notably in 2017 when a reporter claimed Sam Querrey was the first American to reach a major semi-final since 2009. Canadian Denis Shapovalov wrote that “I think some people might think of gender equality as mere political correctness” in an essay on the equal pay in the Players’ Tribune in 2023.

Furthermore, it’s well-documented that top men’s players have unspoken preferences, which they often communicate to tournaments, and which tournaments — unspokenly — try to accommodate or nudge around. (They do this some for top women, too). Rafael Nadal has said clay-court tennis should never take place at night, and it goes on.

The other scheduling inequality also happens at night. No-one, man or woman, wants to play the second late match at the U.S. or Australian Open, with a ridiculous start time .

The men argue that if women are getting equal pay then they should play the late match half the time. OK, but then a men’s match goes five sets in four hours and the women start at 11:30 pm in an empty stadium.

Sometimes scheduling benefits to men happen so fast no one really notices. The Madrid Open experimented with a new doubles format this year, cramming the men’s event mostly into the second half of the second week.

That meant men who weren’t playing the singles got an extra week off. A highly-ranked man who lost early could find a doubles partner, and with him an extra few days of free food, lodging and practice. Nice.

The women’s doubles? It started at the start. They didn’t have that option. Organizers didn’t purposefully set out to deprive them; it just happened, and they had to deal with it.

This attitude extends to matters of inequality in planning and infrastructure off-court, too; anxiety about change doesn’t just extend to the number of sets played or matches scheduled.

Wimbledon only relaxed its all-white dress code after concerns from players about menstruation last year, where the tournament previously required all clothing, including underwear, to be white. At the time, Magda Linette told The Athletic that she has “had a couple of situations at Wimbledon where I felt very uncomfortable,” and welcomed the change, but it had required strident protest at the previous year’s tournament to make it happen.

Top players have become increasingly open about discussing the impact of menstruation on form and performance, with numerous female players talking about PMS’ impact on their game — albeit while coding it as “girl things” in press conferences. China’s Zheng Qinwen saw cramps derail what would have been a famous victory against Iga Swiatek at the French Open in 2022, while Swiatek herself opened up about PMS contributing to her loss to Maria Sakkari of Greece at the same tournament in 2021. “PMS really hit me that day. I’m telling this for every young girl who doesn’t know what’s going on. Don’t worry, it’s normal. Everybody has it,” she said.

Women also suffer speculations about general injuries and “illness” that men never have to go through. Combined with the sport’s limited provisions for players that want to have children — there is no maternity pay, even though players that take time out can retain their previous ranking to enter 12 tournaments over a three-year period after giving birth — these changes and the increased visibility, through players like Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki, and Elina Svitolina, also reinforce that tennis’ women are playing in a structure built for men.

On the tour, it is ever thus.

Wimbledon are relaxing their all-white dress code to ease the stress of women's periods

(Down) the bottom line

Ultimately, the starkest measure comes in dollars, euros, pounds.

Women and men have received equal prize money at all of the Grand Slam tournaments since 2007. Amid some fanfare, last year the WTA Tour announced that the 500-level tournaments would follow suit, along with that 2027 plan for the 1000-level tournaments one rung below the Grand Slams. But not until 2033, in almost a decade. At the time of the deal, Paula Badosa said, “I don’t know why it’s not equal right now.” Tour officials said new sales and marketing efforts need time to produce more revenue.

The WTA requires top players to participate in every Masters 1000 tournament as part of that deal. World No 4 Elena Rybakina, and Swiatek too, have previously expressed disappointment at the way the WTA communicated these changes. Last year in Rome, Rybakina had to lift her title gone midnight after rain delays. Organizers refused to move the match to Sunday, because of the men’s final. Schedule, audience, money.

Tournament organizers have long complained that equal prize money is impossible when WTA media deals are worth about 20 percent of ATP equivalents. Consequently, the WTA contributes far less than the ATP, and the prize money reflects that. That’s how two tournaments in Auckland, New Zealand organized essentially by the same people have the women playing for $262,000 and the men for $660,000. 

Last year, male players shared $336million in prize money, including the Grand Slams. Women shared $170million.

Why are those media deals worth so much less? Women often receive second billing in mixed tournaments, play less desirable schedules and don’t get the same television coverage, because their matches are shorter. And then the players get blamed for not being able to bring in as much money. This is how it all coheres, into the ultimate self-fulfilling, blame-the-victim ouroboros that is seemingly impossible to slay.

Last year, Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour, struck a deal with CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm, which bought 20 percent of a WTA commercial subsidiary for $150 million . The tour has launched a commercial ventures entity aimed at enhancing sales and marketing efforts and improve the visibility of tournaments, part of which is improving streaming and online showings of matches, which are currently limited in comparison to the ATP Tour.

“I would love to go to the hotel and open the TV and see a woman’s tennis match,” Jabeur said midway through the Madrid Open. “I haven’t seen once one tennis match of woman. For me, it’s really frustrating to see that.”

There are more improvements. After a series of disastrous decisions on venues, scheduling, and promotion which came to a nadir in Cancun last year , women will compete for about the same amount of prize money as the men at the season-ending Tour Finals — the WTA’s premier event and a knock-out showcase for the top eight players in the world — for the next three years.

They’ll just have to do so in Saudi Arabia , a country with a long history of human rights abuses, that has jailed women who have run afoul of the country’s leaders by pushing too hard for equality.

Welcome to the new dawn.

(Top photos: Hannah Peters; Julian Finney/Getty Images; Design: John Bradford)

Get all-access to exclusive stories.

Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.

Matthew Futterman is an award-winning veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.”Before coming to The Athletic in 2023, he worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is currently writing a book about tennis, "The Cruelest Game: Agony, Ecstasy and Near Death Experiences on the Pro Tennis Tour," to be published by Doubleday in 2026. Follow Matthew on Twitter @ mattfutterman

In ‘Rebel Girl,’ Kathleen Hanna revisits riot grrrl — and puts it to rest

When punk icon Kathleen Hanna pictures her emotional baggage, she sees a “40-piece Samsonite set in multicolor” trailing behind her. At least she did until she wrote her new book, “Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk.”

The outspoken frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre is no stranger to using writing as a vehicle for catharsis and calls to action. As one of the most prominent figures in riot grrrl — the 1990s underground feminist-punk movement — Hanna’s lyricism has helped empower generations of women to unabashedly assert themselves within their artistic communities and reject any label, stereotype, or violence thrust upon them. But not even the most pointed punk tune can ship off 40 suitcases’ worth of trauma like a 300-page memoir.

“Writing this book was like putting all of that baggage into the Dr. Shrink machine and shrinking it down,” she says. “I could just be like, ‘OK, I’m not dragging this [expletive] behind me anymore.’ Here, I can hand it to somebody and now it’s their problem.”

Hanna will make a direct handoff at the Wilbur on Tuesday , where she’ll sit down for a discussion with writer and Harvard professor Imani Perry. Together they’ll delve into the book’s unflinching portrait of Hanna’s life before, during, and after riot grrrl. Admittedly, the movement is a topic that she was eager to document so she doesn’t have to explain its origins “for the rest of my [expletive] life.”

Instead of writing her memoir chronologically, Hanna jotted down memories as they surfaced, transferring her multicolor “baggage” to a rainbow of Post-It notes, then TextEdit (“like a jerk!” she chides, acknowledging her odd choice of word processor). After writing over 600 pages of material, Hanna instructed her editor to “use a butcher knife, not a scalpel” to halve the book. What remained was a collection of raw vignettes that display a throughline of defiance and vulnerability linking every stage of Hanna’s life. (She might publish the leftover stories as essays or use them for inspiration in the television world, a field that Hanna says she wouldn’t mind exploring down the line.)

Advertisement

Many of the vignette titles stem from Hanna’s own shorthand for her life’s defining moments. “My First Foray Into Performance Art” recalls the time a young Hanna spit a mouthful of Frosted Flakes into the face of her father, whom she describes as callous and abusive; “Benjamin Franklin’s Glasses” explains how her offhand graffiti on pal Kurt Cobain’s wall (“Kurt smells like Teen Spirit”) accidentally shaped Nirvana’s breakthrough hit.

But where many music memoirs devolve into digressions about who’s-who trivia and lavish lifestyles, “Rebel Girl” transforms Hanna’s blunt riot grrrl lyrics into a three-dimensional person with a thousand reasons to raise hell. Hanna’s memoir isn’t about misogyny, per se; it’s just impossible to flesh out her career without addressing how discrimination impacted her development as an artist.

“To me, it’s the best job on the planet, but you’re also facing sexual harassment,” Hanna explains. “And you don’t have any HR to talk to about it, because you work at a different place every single night, so you can’t ask Kevin to move his [expletive] desk. Because there’s 8,000 Kevins and there’s no desk.”

Hanna’s firsthand experiences with sexual violence and stalking represent only part of the problem. Windows into her time with Bikini Kill in particular reveal how many hurdles women must clear to become safe and welcome members of their artistic communities. Hanna recalls the first time she heard women referred to as “coat racks,” a degrading term from the hardcore scene that implies women belong on the edge of mosh pits, dutifully clutching their boyfriends’ jackets, rather than in the center of the action. In another vignette, she details Bikini Kill’s decision to raise ticket prices at their shows — not for more profit, but because male hecklers would happily fork over $5 to hurl junk at the band onstage, yet $12 was apparently too steep.

Similar situations become dicier backstage and on the road, where music venue staff can range from uncooperative to threatening, leaving artists like Hanna unsure of how to safely proceed without canceling their performance.

On paper — and TextEdit — Hanna confronted each hardship one vignette at a time, unblocking much-needed healing in the process.

“I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to let all this baggage go unless I face it, unless I stop just making it into a joke and acting like it didn’t matter,’” she explains. “Pretty extensive therapy” was also essential to her moving forward.

While the punk icon says she largely wrote “Rebel Girl” for herself, Hanna hopes the book will provide validation for other performers who face similar forms of discrimination, regardless of their gender. In retrospect, she acknowledges riot grrrl’s lack of intersectionality, an aspect of the movement she’s happy to “leave behind” in favor of more inclusive activism that recognizes how sexism intersects with racism and class.

Hanna places the outdated approach to feminism right next to her shrunk-down set of baggage — two things to keep in the past.

“That chapter of my life is closed,” she says. “If I want to take a hammer to it, if I want to ax it, if I want to put it in a Cuisinart, I can do whatever I want to it. I can bury my book in my backyard after my book tour and forget about it. That feels pretty good.”

KATHLEEN HANNA: REBEL GIRL BOOK TOUR

At the Wilbur, 246 Tremont St. May 28 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $42 (includes book). thewilbur.com/artist/kathleen-hanna

Victoria Wasylak can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @VickiWasylak.

Help | Advanced Search

Mathematics > Analysis of PDEs

Title: interior harnack inequality and hölder estimates for linearized monge-ampère equations in divergence form with drift.

Abstract: In this paper, we study interior estimates for solutions to linearized Monge-Ampère equations in divergence form with drift terms and the right-hand side containing the divergence of a bounded vector field. Equations of this type appear in the study of semigeostrophic equations in meteorology and the solvability of singular Abreu equations in the calculus of variations with a convexity constraint. We prove an interior Harnack inequality and Hölder estimates for solutions to equations of this type in two dimensions, and under an integrability assumption on the Hessian matrix of the Monge-Ampère potential in higher dimensions. Our results extend those of Le (Analysis of Monge-Ampère equations, Graduate Studies in Mathematics, vol.240, American Mathematical Society, 2024) to equations with drift terms.

Submission history

Access paper:.

• HTML (experimental)
• Other Formats

References & Citations

• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

• Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .