Global trends in intra-household gender inequality

• Published in: Journal of economic behavior & organization Vol. 189; pp. 515 - 546
• Main Authors: Malghan, Deepak, Swaminathan, Hema
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-09-2021
• Subjects: Atkinson inequality metric; Gender equality; LIS & LWS; Micro-GKC; D63; Atkinson inequality metric; Micro-GKC; I31; Gender equality; LIS & LWS; J16; O10
• ISSN: 0167-2681; 1879-1751
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.07.022

We present trends in intra-household gender inequality for forty five different countries across a four decade period (1973–2016), using global micro-data from 2.85 million households. Intra-household gender inequality has declined by 20% in the four decades that we study. However, current levels are still significant so that any neglect of intra-household gender inequality results in a substantial underestimation of overall earnings inequality. For a sub-sample of countries, we show that the relationship between intra-household gender inequality and household economic status is non-monotonic – that we refer to as the “micro-GKC” (micro Gender Kuznets Curve) relationship. We also develop an empirical framework to measure the aggregate welfare loss from intra-household gender inequality. For a range of plausible inequality aversion assumptions, we report a median welfare loss of over 15% of aggregate earnings.