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Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market: a voice for

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Qual Quant (2017) 51:2245–2266
DOI 10.1007/s11135-016-0384-4

Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour

market: a voice for equality

Haroon Ur Rashid Khan1 • Anwar Khan2,3 • Khalid Zaman4 •

Agha Amad Nabi5 • Sanil S. Hishan5 • Talat Islam6

Published online: 11 July 2016

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract The objective of the study is to examine the impact of gender discrimination in
education, health, and labour market on economic growth in a panel of 20 high-income
OECD countries for the period of 1980–2015. In addition, the study proposed an index of
pro-equality growth, which is flared with education, health, and labour market initiatives to
promote economic growth. The results show that gender parity index for educational
attainment significantly promotes economic growth while health and labour market
required substantial policy reforms to reduce health and labour market inequalities to
sustain long-term economic growth. The results classified three countries as highly
equitable growth, one country for equitable growth, two countries are moderate growth,
four countries are less equitable growth while remaining 10 countries fall in the category of
inequitable growth, where greater inequality promotes economic growth on the cost of
education, health, and labour market inequalities.

Keywords Gender discrimination  Education equity  Health equity  Labour market

equity  Pro-equality growth index  High income OECD countries

& Khalid Zaman

Khalid_zaman786@yahoo.com
1
Finance Department, Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
2
Fakulti Sains, Teknologi Dan Pembangunan Insan, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia,
Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia
3
Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology,
Attock Campus, Attock, Pakistan
4
Department of Economics, Abbottabad University of Science & Technology, Tehsil Havelian,
District Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
5
Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
6
Hailey College of Banking and Finance, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

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2246 H. U. R. Khan et al.

1 Introduction

Pro-equality arguments received by the pioneer work of Leightner (1992) that emphasize
the compatibility of increased equality and economic growth in a reversal mode, as if
greater equality advances economic growth; this is called ‘pro-equality argument’, while if
greater inequality supports economic growth; this is called ‘anti-equality argument’. We
extracted this idea in a more advocacy and comprehensive gender analysis and proposed an
index of ‘pro-equality growth’, called ‘Pro-equality Growth Index (PeGI)’’, which is flared
with education, health, and labour market equities to sustained long-term economic
growth. The pro-equality growth index defined as if greater equality promotes economic
growth, which in turns to reduce gender discrimination in education, health, and labour
market; then the given scenario is called ‘highly equitable growth’,1 while, if greater
inequality advances economic growth, which implies that economic growth increases on
the costs of education, health, and labour market inequalities; then the given scenario is
called ‘inequitable growth’.2
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market are widely discussed area
in the feminist literature. The number of feminist scholars is in view that gender dis-
crimination required massive economic intervention to reduce gender gap in every walk of
life. Some of the scholarly works presented here to emphasize on this important differ-
entiation i.e., Blinder (1973) argued that differentials in wage patterns are the strong
predictor of injudicious income distribution that attributed to gender discrimination in
various sorts. Kingdon (1998) examined the two forms of gender discrimination, i.e., the
first form of gender discrimination is related with labour market inequalities with specific
reference of job opportunities, while the second form is related with parental investment in
education and found that both the forms of inequities majorly caused by the disincentive
labour market policies, which is a major discriminating factor for girls vis-à-vis boys.
Alderman and King (1998, p. 453) argued that, ‘‘The gender gap in schooling is puzzling
given that the expected returns to an individual for increased schooling—as measured by
proportional wage increments—does not differ by gender’’. Elson (1999) concluded that
women’s discrimination in the labour market persists in the absence of structural institu-
tional changes, while it would be appeared by regulating labor market to settle goals of
equity and efficiency. Pavalko et al. (2003) investigated the cause-effect relationship
between women’s health and perceived work discrimination by using the extensive data set
of 1778 employees and confirm that perceived work discrimination has a considerable
impact on women’s mental and physical health that required health policy reforms to
reduce work discrimination in order to improve women’s health at workplace. Jurajda
(2003) emphasized the need of ‘equal pay policy’ that reduces the gender wage gap in the
labour market. Morrisson and Jütting (2005) found that women’s discrimination merely
pronounced by multiple factors in a developing countries while social institutions are the
single predictor to determine women’s economic activities outside the household affairs.
Batliwala (1998, p. 127) argued that, ‘‘Integrated development approaches have

1
Few more terms used in this study, i.e., equitable growth, moderately equitable growth, and less
equitable growth, which shows that, if and only if, gender gap reduces any one of the three subjective
discriminating factors i.e., education, health, and labour market, then it would fall in each of the stated
conditions.
2
Except highly equitable and equitable growth condition, the remaining equity conditions i.e., moderately
equitable growth and less equitable growth falls in the category of inequitable, however, we may distinguish
that, if the proposed index value becomes negative then we pronounced the term ‘inequitable growth’ rather
than moderate or less equitable growth.

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2247

encouraged women’s collectives that have engaged in development and social problem
resolution and formed specialized activity groups as means of mobilization of women’’.
Busse and Spielmann (2006) examined the relationship between international trade and
gender inequality in a large sample of developing and developed countries and found that
along with increase gender wage gap; there is substantial increase in the labour intensive
goods, while gender discrimination in education and labour market tends to decrease the
labor intensive commodities in a region. Marmot et al. (2008) focused on health equity
indices that merely based on social factors to minimizing the gender gap through policy
health actions. Ross and Mirowsky (2010) assessed the gender health equity through
educational attainment by using adult survey in United States and confirm that benefits of
education spread over more in women than men, while fruits of education support
women’s health more than men. Cooray and Potrafke (2011) examined the relationship
between political institutions and gender discrimination in education in a panel of 157
countries for the period of 1991–2006 and found that there is no such causation been
visible in relationship between political institutions and gender discrimination, while
autocratic and democratic regimes both supports the girls and gender educational oppor-
tunities in a region. The result further indicate the cultural and religious barrier that
primary influence education inequalities across the countries. Chisamya et al. (2012)
concluded that although high achievements in gender parity index for education been
visible in Malawi and Bangladesh, however, it’s still lag behind the gender equity in a
society. Mussida and Picchio (2014) estimated wage gap between highly educated and low
educated women and men and found that low educated women majorly affected in terms of
receiving less wages as compare to their counter parts.
De Paola and Scoppa (2015) found gender discrimination in academic arena where
promotion of female candidates to the next level merely based on promotion evaluator
committee and argued that female promotions to the next grade possible only if there is
gender mix in evaluator panel committee, while if there is male exclusive committees, the
chances of female promotion is less likely to be promoted. Foynes et al. (2015) investi-
gated the relationship between sex based discrimination and race based discrimination and
their resulting impact on physical and mental health of Marine corps and found that race
based discrimination has a negative association with the physical health, while sex based
discrimination does not signify their impact on a give sample of data. The policies for
proper healthcare functioning required social support to maintain self esteem and health to
perform job tasks efficiently. Perugini and Selezneva (2015) discussed the labor market
inequalities in Eastern Europe and found that deregulation in labor market stimulates
gender wage inequality at the top and middle income holders, while the disparities has
been disappeared at the bottom income holders, as they earned a lower proportion of wage
as compared to the remaining quintile progressions. The results further confine that higher
union density helpful to provoke the voice of their employees and it significantly reduces
the wage differentials between the gender employees. Saar and Helemäe (2016) analyzed
the wage discriminating policies among men and women in the context of Estonia and
found that wage differential gaps rising among the men and women despite the consid-
erable growth of women share in attaining education, however, this feminization of edu-
cation growth doesn’t transformed into the labour market to minimize the wage gap
between the genders. Guimarães and Silva (2016) investigated different gender discrimi-
natory factors including increasing wage gap between men and women in Brazilian
tourism sector and found that tourism sector is inequitable in the form of wage gap as this
gap escalating despite the same job done by the women as relative to the men. The study
concluded that attainment of higher education may give favor to reduce wage gap in the

123
2248 H. U. R. Khan et al.

labour market. Razavi (2016) emphasized the significance of women empowerment and
gender equality in the sustainability development goals (SDGs), however, SDGs somehow
less sensitive to the MDGs that should need more policy interventions to address gender
inequality across the globe. Ferrant and Kolev (2016) examined the impact of gender
discrimination on economic growth under cross-country analysis and found that gender
inequality tend to reduce per capita income, however, its visible impact majorly on low
income countries by lowering the stock of women’s capital in the labour force participation
rate. This crucial fact needs strong policy reforms to reduce the gender discrimination
across the countries. Kabeer (2016) argued different causal framework to evaluate the
relationships between economic growth and gender equality, as it is clear evident from
previous literature that gender equality promotes economic growth of the many countries,
while the reverse causality may either promote the gender equality while increasing
economic growth is the policy question for the positive thoughts. This reverse cause-effect
relationship draws some favorable policy implications to lessen the gender gap and pro-
mote gender equality across the countries. Cavalcanti and Tavares (2016) investigated the
long-run impact of gender wage gap on United States’ income per capita and found that
there is a negative relationship between gender wage gap and income per capita, which
turns to explain around a 50 % increase in the wage differentials leads to decrease income
per capita by 35 % in the steady state. The gender wage differentials minimized by
appropriate economic policies to increase output by reducing wage discrimination in the
labor market.
The above discussion confirms the wage differentials, health inequalities and educa-
tional disparities among genders, which required momentous policy framework to reduce
gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market. The objective of the study is
to clearly examine the impact of education, health, and labour market inequalities on
economic growth in a panel of 20 selected high income OECD countries for a period of
1980–2015. Further, the study proposed an index of pro-equality growth, which assessed
and classified the countries on the basis of four distinct equity modes including (i) highly
equitable growth, (ii) moderately equitable growth, (iii) less equitable growth, and (iv)
inequitable growth. This index flared with the health, education, and labour market equities
to assess whether greater equalities (inequalities) promote growth, called ‘pro-equality
growth argument’ (anti-equality growth argument). The gains (and/or losses) of economic
growth due to education, health, and labour market equities (inequities) would be further
assess by ‘pro-equality growth equivalent rate’. We believe that this index works in a good
faith and accompanied with some larger elements of inequalities that further may enhanced
with other equality factors to promote growth.

2 Data source and methodology

The data set of education, health and labour market inequalities comprises the following
variables i.e., gender parity index for gross enrollment ratio in primary and secondary
education, and gender parity index for gross enrollment ratio in tertiary education, both
serve as a proxy for educational equality, while smoking prevalence –females to male (%
of adults), and infant mortality rate—number of female infants to male infants (per 1000
live births) served as a proxy for health equality. The study used three proxies for labour
market equalities including unemployment—female to male (as % of total labor force),
wage and salaried workers, female to male (as % of employed), and ratio of female to male

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2249

labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate). Moreover, the study used GDP
per capita (constant 2005 US$) and Gini coefficient (World Bank estimate) proxied for
economic growth and income inequality in a panel of 20 selected high income OECD
countries, such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, United Kingdom, and USA, over a period of 1980–2015. The data set is taken
from World Development Indicators published by World Bank (2016). The forward and
backward interpolation technique is used to fill the missing data in two different time
periods in majority of the country cases. Figure 1 shows the plots of level data for ready
reference.
The rationale behind the selection of high income OECD countries is that this region
holds larger disparities in terms of education, health, and labour market, which turned to be
in equitable mode by appropriate policy measures. There is some factual statements pre-
sented for this region i.e., approximately there is nine times higher average income of the
richest 10 % of the population as compared to the poorest 10 % across the OECD region,
up from seven times 25 years ago. While, we talk about gender inequality, there is on

FMMORT FMUNMP
Infant mortality rate, female to male ratio FMSMOK Unemployment, female to male ratio
Smoking prevalence, females to male ratio (% of adults)
(per 1,000 live births) (% of female labor force)
.88 1.2 3.0

2.5
.84 1.0

2.0
.80 0.8
1.5

.76 0.6
1.0

.72 0.4 0.5

N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries
T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period

FMWSW
Wage and salaried workers, female to male ratio GDPPC GINI
(% of females employed) GDP per capita (constant 2005 US$) GINI index (World Bank estimate)
1.4 100,000 44

1.3
80,000 40

1.2
60,000 36
1.1
40,000 32
1.0

0.9 20,000 28

0.8 0 24
N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries
T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period

GPIPSENR GPITER RFMLFPR

Gross enrolment ratio, primary and secondary, Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary, Ratio of female to male labor force participation
gender parity index (GPI) gender parity index (GPI) rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)
1.2 2.0 100

90
1.6
1.1
80
1.2
1.0 70
0.8
60
0.9
0.4 50

0.8 0.0 40
N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries N = 20 High Income OECD Countries
T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period T = 1980-2015 time period

Fig. 1 Plots of level data. Source World Bank (2016)

123
2250 H. U. R. Khan et al.

average, 16 % less earning received women to the men, and occupy less than one fifth of
parliamentary seats around the world and their access to top management positions is even
worse in companies. The health, education, and labour market inequalities required pro-
equality growth reforms to sustain long-term economic growth in a region (OECD 2016).
The study used the following non-linear regression equations in order to evaluate the
impact of education, health, and labour market equalities on per capita income in a panel of
20 selected high income OECD countries i.e.,
Model-I: Gender (in) Equality in Education
lnðGDPPCÞi;t ¼ C0 þ C1 lnðGDPPCÞi;t1 þ C2 lnðGINIÞi;t þ C3 lnðGPIPSENRÞi;t
þ C4 lnðGPITERÞi;t þ vt þ gi þ ei;t
ð1Þ
Model-II: Gender (in) Equality in Health
lnðGDPPCÞi;t ¼ C0 þ C1 lnðGDPPCÞi;t1 þ C2 lnðGINIÞi;t þ C3 lnðFMMORTÞi;t
ð2Þ
þ C4 lnðFMSMOKÞi;t þ vt þ gi þ ei;t

Model-III: Gender (in) Equality in Labour Market

lnðGDPPCÞi;t ¼ C0 þ C1 lnðGDPPCÞi;t1 þ C2 lnðGINIÞi;t þ C3 lnðFMUNMPÞi;t
ð3Þ
þ C4 lnðFMWSWÞi;t þ C5 lnðRFMLFPRÞi;t þ vt þ gi þ ei;t

Model-IV: Gender (in) Equality in Education, Health, and Labour Market

lnðGDPPCÞi;t ¼ C0 þ C1 lnðGDPPCÞi;t1 þ C2 lnðGINIÞi;t þ C3 lnðGPIPSENRÞi;t
þ C4 lnðGPITERÞi;t þ C5 lnðFMMORTÞi;t þ C6 lnðFMSMOKÞi;t
þ C7 lnðFMUNMPÞi;t þ C7 lnðFMWSWÞi;t þ C8 lnðRFMLFPRÞi;t
þ vt þ gi þ ei;t
ð4Þ

where GDPPC indicates GDP per capita, GINI indicates Gini coefficient, GPIPSENR
indicates gender parity index for primary and secondary school enrolment, GPITER
indicates gender parity index for tertiary education, FMMORT indicates female to male
infant mortality rate, FMSMOK indicates female to male smoking prevalence rate,
FMUNMP indicates female to male unemployment rate, FMWSW indicates female to
male wages and salaried workers, RFMLFPR indicates ratio of female to male labour force
participation rate, ‘i’ indicates cross-section identifiers i.e., 20 selected high income OECD
countries, ‘t’ indicates time period from 1980 to 2015, ‘ln’ indicates natural logarithm, ‘vt ’
indicates time specific shocks, ‘gi ’ indicates country specific effects, and e indicates white
noise error term.
Equations (1)–(4) are estimated by dynamic panel least square regressions that ignores
the time invariant and country specific shocks, however, it includes lagged dependent
variable as explanatory variable, which controls the possible endogeneity from the given
models. The study used two more econometric techniques including panel fixed effect
model and panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, which former absorb
the country specific effects, while later controls the possible endogeneity and serial cor-
relation problems from the given models. The panel GMM estimator required a list of

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2251

instrumental variables for handling the possible simultaneity issues from the given models,
therefore, the study includes first lagged of the explanatory variables along with the lagged
dependent variables used as instrumental variables for the study. Sargan-Hansen J-statistics
is the improved statistical test to check the appropriateness of the instrumental lists that
being used to check the simultaneity in the given models by incorporating lagged
dependent variable in the regressor lists for ‘long-run convergence’ between the studied
variables. After obtaining parameter estimates from regression analysis, the study step
forward to developed pro-equality growth index to assess whether the growth process is
more equitable (inequitable) when equality (inequality) rises.

2.1 Pro-equality growth index (PeGI)

Bardhan and Klasen (1999) critically viewed ‘UNDP’s gender related indices’ and indi-
cated the certain limitations regarding the coverage of data gaps that limitize their use-
fulness in international comparisons. Dijkstra and Hanmer (2000) in a similar line critically
evaluated ‘gender inequality index of United Nations’ and proposed a new measure of
index called ‘relative status of women’, however, they argued that both of the proposed
models have a certain limitations that should required more authentic version of measuring
equality indices. Klasen (2006) further criticized the ‘UNDP’s gender related indices’ in
terms of conceptual and empirical computation and suggested some computational
remedial measures for feasibility of this index. Permanyer (2013) proposed a new measure
of ‘gender inequality index’ that contrary to the ‘UNDP’s gender-related indices’ and
argued that the functional form of ‘’UNDP’s gender associated index are unnecessary
confusing, merely less satisfactory for low income countries in order to measure the
women vis-à-vis men performance through absolute indicators. However, this new index
proposition is simply functional and composite in order to incorporate all functional
equality factors in it.
On the basis of contrary debate for UNDP’s gender-related indices, this study proposed
an index of pro-equality growth that based on education, health and labour market
equalities to form a new and relatively more robust index to assess gender equality across
the countries. Pro-equality Growth Assessment (PeGA) is designed to evaluate pro-
equality growth arguments and classified the countries on the basis of higher equality
(inequality) index i.e., whether increasing equality promote growth and reducing the
gender gap in education, health, and labour market, while on the other side, higher
inequality increase economic growth on the cost of gender discrimination in education,
health, and labour market. The study proposed and develops ‘pro-equality growth index
(PeGI)’ that would helpful to assess whether there is equitable (inequitable) growth in a
countries and then assigned countries’ ranks on the basis of this index.
The general mathematical form of PeGI is as follows:
ðINEQ1 þ INEQ2 þ INEQ3 þ    INEQnÞ  GINI
PeGI ¼ ðiÞ
GDPPC
where PeGI indicates pro-equality growth index, INEQ1 indicates inequality-1 (example,
health inequalities), INEQ2 indicates inequality-2, INEQ3 indicates inequality-3, INEQn
indicates inequality-n, GINI indicates Gini coefficient, and GDPPC indicates per capita
income.

123
2252 H. U. R. Khan et al.

This index further extended into its equality counter parts, for example,
½ðfactor1 þ aÞ þ ðfactor2 þ bÞ þ ðfactor3 þ cÞ þ    ðfactorn þ kÞ  GINI
PeGIINEQ1 ¼
ðf max1 þaÞ þ ðf max2 þbÞ þ ðf max3 þcÞ þ    ðf maxn þkÞ
ðiiÞ
where factor-1 to factor-n represents growth rate in inequality-1 factors; a; b; c; and k
represents standard deviation value for factor-1 to factor-n; and fmax1 to fmaxn represents
maximum factor values of the subsequent factor.
Pro-equality growth index comprises the following variables i.e.,
(i) Education (in) equality
Educational inequalities are the most discriminated factor that consider be the major
hurdle against pro-equality growth reforms across the globe. There are number of scholars
that unveiled this reality and proposed diversified policy implications in order to reduce the
gender gaps in education, for example, Klasen (2002) confirmed that educational
inequality directly affect the country’s economic growth, while indirectly affect the pop-
ulation and investment rate of growth. Klasen and Lamanna (2009) revisited the rela-
tionship between education inequality, unemployment and economic growth in a panel of
diversified countries and confirm that gender discrimination in education and employment
considerably reduces country’s economic growth that required extensive human reforms to
reduce the gender gap in social equalities. Knowles et al. (2002) highlighted the need of
females’ education that significantly raises labour productivity, while empowering
women’s through providing education and reducing gender gaps is one of the crucial tasks
for the policy makers to speedup economic prosperity across the globe. Bandiera and
Natraj (2013) probe that whether gender inequality obstruct the growth and development
phases of the countries, while the mechanism through which gender inequality affect the
economic growth and development stages of the countries still not clear. The extensive and
collaborative work is required to develop the causal links between the gender inequality
and economic growth under the cross-section and panel base setting across the globe.
This study used two broad measures of educational equalities i.e.,
– Gender parity index for primary and secondary gross enrolment ratio (GPIPSENR)
The GPIPSENR figure for each OECD country reflects the ratio of girls to boys
enrolled at primary and secondary levels in public and private schools.
– Gender parity index for tertiary gross enrolment ratio (GPITER) The GPITER
figure for each OECD country reflects the ratio of women to men enrolled at tertiary
level in public and private schools.
The data set has been obtained from World Development indicators published by World
Bank (2016).
(ii) Health (in) equalities
Health reforms are prerequisite for healthy and wealthy nations. Health inequalities may
largely affect the pro-equality growth arguments, which should be equitable for broad-
based growth. Risch et al. (1993) argued that females’ smokers are more prone to expose
with lung cancer as relative to men’s’ smokers, which required considerable attention
towards female health in order to avoid cigarette smoking for longevity. Arber (2016)
emphasized the health and educational well-being and considered both are the strong
predictors for employment/self-employment. Bloom et al. (2001) concluded that good

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2253

health not only even increases economic output while it has a considerable and sizeable
affect to increase all economic dimensions across the globe. The study used two measures
for healthy equalities i.e.,
– Infant Mortality rate—number of female to male infants dying ratio (FMMORT): It is
the ratio of female to male infants dying before reaching one year of age, per 1000 live
births in a given year. The data is extracted from World Bank (2016), as the data is
available separately for infant mortality rate of females and infant mortality rate of
male, which further compiled in a form of number of female to male dying ratio (per
1000 live births).
– Prevalence of smoking in female to male ratio (FMSMOK): It is the ratio of women to
men ages 15 and over who smoke any form of tobacco products. The data is extracted
from World Bank (2016), as the data is available separately for smoking prevalence of
females and male, while we compiled the data in a form of female to male ratio as % of
adults.

(iii) Labour market (in) equalities

Labour market inequalities comprises larger portion of females unemployment, lower
wages and salaried female workers, and considered less productive in labour force par-
ticipation rate. Therefore, the rigid labour market further tend to contract the job market of
females and if offered at a marginal wage rate as compared to the male workers. Seguino
(2000) argued that gender wage inequality increases along with the increase economic
growth, while a part from it, the channel of transmission through which its affect to
economic growth is associated with the investment share to GDP that contradict to the
previous studies related with the slow pace of economic growth due to rising inequality
across the globe. Amin et al. (2015) confirmed that greater gender inequality obstruct the
economic growth of poor countries, while this relationship has been disappeared in rela-
tively rich countries. Oostendorp (2009) concluded that gender wage gap decreases along
with the increase economic development, while it subsequently decline by trade liberal-
ization policies and financial investment in richer countries, however, the results are dis-
appeared in poorer countries, where little evidence trace out in favor of FDI inflows and
trade to reduce gender wage gap accordingly.
This study used three broad measures of labour equalities including:
– Female to male unemployment ratio (FMUNMP) It refers to the share of the labor force
that is without work but available for and seeking employment. We compiled the data
set of female to male unemployment ratio, which is extracted from the World Bank
(2016) database. Originally, the data is available in the form of separate male and
female unemployment as % of labour force, while we gather both the data in a form of
single ratio to assess the labour market inequalities in a visible form of unemployment
– Wages and salaried workers—female to male ratio (FMWSW) It refers those workers
who hold ‘‘paid employment jobs’’. We extracted the data from World Bank (2016)
database, as the data is available separately for female and male’s wage and salaried
workers as % of total employed, while we transform the data in female to male ratio to
assess the paid employment inequalities in an existing labour force
– Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (RFMLFPR) It is the proportion
of the female to male population ages 15 and older that is economically active and
supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period. The
data is taken from World Bank (2016) database to assess the females’ participation in

123
2254 H. U. R. Khan et al.

terms of males’ participation in the existing labour force to draw a meaningful

conclusion

(iv) GDP per capita (GDPPC): GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by
midyear population. Data are in constant 2005 U.S. dollars and obtained from
World Bank (2016) database. GDP per capita is used as a proxy for economic
output and served as a ‘response’ variable of the study.
(v) Income Inequality (GINI): Income inequality is proxied by Gini coefficient (%). It
measures the extent to which the distribution of income among individuals or
households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. Gini
index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect
inequality. The data is obtained from World Bank (2016) database.
This index works on actual growth rates between two time periods, therefore, higher
index value would represent greater equality, while lower index value would represent
lower equality (consider after some threshold level i.e., inequality) and then classified the
countries on the basis of pro-equality growth index. Now we move to the studied factors
and developed the PeGI i.e.,
PeGIEDUCATION þ PeGIHEALTH þ PeGILABOUR
PeGI ¼ ðiiiÞ
AGRGDPPC
where D indicates first difference and AGRGDPPC indicates actual growth rate in per
capita income.
The study further assess pro-equality growth index in equality counter parts i.e.,
PeGIEDUCATION
½ðDGPIPSENR=GPISENR  100Þ þ aÞÞ þ ðDGPITER=GPITER  100Þ þ bÞÞ  DGINI
¼
ðGPIPSENRmax þ aÞ þ ðGPITERmax þ bÞ
ðivÞ

PeGIHEALTH
½ðDFMSMOK=FMSMOK  100Þ þ cÞÞ þ ðDFMMORT=FMMORT  100Þ þ kÞÞ  DGINI
¼
ðFMSMOKmax þ cÞ þ ðFMMORTmax þ kÞ
ðvÞ

½ðDFMUNMP=FMUNMP  100Þ þ -ÞÞ þ ðDFMWSW=FMWSW  100Þ þ hÞÞ

þ ðDRFMLFPR=RFMLFPR  100Þ þ #ÞÞ  DGINI
PeGILABOUR ¼
ðFMUNMPmax þ -Þ þ ðFMWSWmax þ hÞ þ ðRFMLFPRmax þ #Þ
ðviÞ
where D indicates first difference, GPIPSENRmax indicates maximum value of gender
parity index for primary and secondary school enrolment, GPITERmax indicates maximum
value of gender parity index for tertiary enrolment, FMSMOKmax indicates maximum
value of female to male smoking prevalence, FMMORTmax indicates maximum value of
female to male mortality, FMUNMPmax indicates maximum value of female to male
unemployment, FMWSW indicates female to male wages and salaried workers,
RFMLFPRmax indicates maximum ratio of female to male labour force participation rate,
a; b; c; k; -; h; and # indicates the standard deviation value of the respective factors.

123
 Table 1 Descriptive statistics
FMMORT FMSMOK FMUNMP FMWSW GDPPC GINI GPIPSENR GPITER RFMLFPR

Mean 0.815 0.798 1.280 1.069 34837.200 32.383 1.003 1.104 72.838
Maximum 0.871 1.061 2.612 1.304 87772.690 41.750 1.152 1.912 91.332
Minimum 0.741 0.432 0.547 0.876 10502.720 25.540 0.872 0.406 49.057
SD 0.025 0.133 0.490 0.067 13738.670 3.443 0.035 0.269 10.875
Skewness -0.650 -0.640 0.975 0.718 1.054 0.335 0.474 -0.155 -0.546
Kurtosis 3.719 3.936 2.965 4.676 4.485 2.893 5.471 3.388 2.354
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market…

FMMORT indicates infant mortality rate, female to male ratio; FMSMOK indicates smoking prevalence, females to male ratio; FMUNMP indicates unemployment, female to
male ratio; FMWSW indicates Wage and salaried workers, female to male ratio; GDPPC indicates GDP per capita; GINI indicates Gini coefficient; GPIPSENR indicates
Gross enrolment ratio, primary and secondary, gender parity index (GPI); GPITER indicates Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary, gender parity index (GPI); and RFMLFPR
indicates Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate
2255

123
2256 H. U. R. Khan et al.

The higher positive value assigned greater equality, while negative value shows greater
inequality in the respective countries. We proposed the following judgmental threshold
values for higher equality, medium equality, lower equality, and inequality across the
countries i.e.,
If,
PeGI  1, economic growth is highly equitable,
0:66 [ PeGI\1, economic growth is equitable,
0:33 [ PeGI\0:66, economic growth is moderately equitable,
0 [ PeGI\0:33, economic growth is less equitable, and
PeGI\0, higher inequality supports economic growth on the cost of health, education,
and labour market inequalities.
On the basis of above threshold values, we may classify higher equitable countries and
inequitable countries, by taking a case study of high income OECD countries.

2.2 Pro-equality growth equivalent rate (PeGER)

The study further proposed another form of equitable growth assessment, called ‘pro-
equality growth equivalent rate (PeGER)’. PeGER captured the redistribution of income
gains from economic growth, as higher the PeGI (greater than 1), higher will be the
PeGER, which would implies gains from economic growth and income equality improves
economic growth, which substantially decreases the gender gap and promote engendered
economic development in the region, while reverse is true for anti-inequality growth
argument. The more general form of PeGER is as follow i.e.,
PeGER ¼ PeGI  Actual growth rate ðviiÞ

We believe that this index work in a good faith and promote gender equality all across
the globe.

3 Results

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the panel of 20 selected high income OECD
countries. The statistics show that female to male infant mortality rate has a minimum
value of 0.741 and a maximum value of 0.871 with a mean value of 0.815. The standard
deviation is about 0.025 with negatively skewed distribution and has a considerable peak of
the respective distribution. The smoking prevalence in female to male ratio has a minimum
value of 0.432 and a maximum value of 1.061 with an average value of 0.798. The standard
deviation is about 0.133 with negatively skewed distribution and has a Kurtosis value of
3.936. Female to male unemployment rate has a mean value of 1.280 with standard
deviation value of 0.490, having a positive skewed distribution and a considerable peak of
the distribution. Female to male wage rate of salaried workers have a mean value of 1.069
with a standard deviation value of 0.067.
The minimum value of GDP per capita is 10502.720 US$ and the maximum value of
87772.690 US$ with an average value of 34837.200 US$, having a standard deviation
value of 13738.670 US$, positively skewed and considerable peak of the distribution.
Income inequality has a minimum value of 25.540 and the maximum value of 41.750,
having an average value of 32.383 and standard deviation value of 3.443. Gender parity

123
 Table 2 Dynamic least squares, panel fixed effect, and panel GMM estimates
Variables Dynamic least squares Panel fixed effect Panel GMM

DLS-1 DLS-11 DLS-111 DLS-IV PFE-1 PFE-11 PFE-111 PFE-IV PGMM-1 PGMM- PGMM- PGMM-
11 111 IV

log(GDPPC)t-1 0.997* 0.995* 1.000* 1.000* 0.964* 0.977* 0.982* 0.971* 0.966* 0.976* 0.992* 0.979*
log(GINI)t 0.005 0.009 -0.007 0.020** 0.037 0.029 0.019 0.015 0.029 0.018 0.023 0.016
log(GPIPSENR)t 0.112* – – 0.102* 0.094** – – 0.127* 0.133* – – 0.144*
log(GPITER)t -0.014* – – -0.002 0.009 – – 0.014** 0.006 – – 0.012
log(FMMORT)t – -0.124* – -0.130* – -0.059 – 0.022 – -0.040 – 0.020
log(FMSMOK)t – 0.010 – 0.019** – -0.055** – 0.010 – -0.066** – -0.010
log(FMUNMP)t – – -0.0005 0.013* – – 0.041* 0.046* – – 0.019** 0.024*
log(FMWSW)t – – 0.022 0.031*** – – 0.066** 0.050*** – – 0.073** 0.051
log(RFMLFPR)t – – -0.032* -0.012 – – 0.003 0.008 – – -0.046*** -0.029
Constant 0.024 0.012 0.176* -0.028 0.249** 0.118 0.102 0.219*** 0.256** 0.167 0.200*** 0.291**
Statistical tests
R-squared 0.9962 0.99619 0.99619 0.9964 0.9965 0.9965 0.9968 0.9969 0.9965 0.9965 0.9967 0.9968
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market…

Adjusted R-squared 0.9961 0.99617 0.99616 0.9963 0.9964 0.9964 0.9967 0.9967 0.9964 0.9964 0.9966 0.9967
F-statistics 45657.140* 45477.67* 36287.91* 21322.81* 8515.844* 8473.157* 8817.518* 7719.982* – – – –
Sargan-Hansen – – – – – – – – 1.90E-11 4.54E-12 5.45E-13 4.36E-11
J-statistic
Instrumental rank – – – – – – – – 24 24 25 29

FMMORT indicates infant mortality rate, female to male ratio; FMSMOK indicates smoking prevalence, females to male ratio; FMUNMP indicates unemployment, female to
male ratio; FMWSW indicates Wage and salaried workers, female to male ratio; GDPPC indicates GDP per capita; GINI indicates Gini coefficient; GPIPSENR indicates
Gross enrolment ratio, primary and secondary, gender parity index (GPI); GPITER indicates Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary, gender parity index (GPI); and RFMLFPR
indicates Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate. DLS represents dynamic least square regression, PFE represents panel fixed effect regression, and PGMM
represents panel GMM estimator
*, **, and *** indicates significant probability values at 1, 5, and 10 % level of significance
2257

123
2258 H. U. R. Khan et al.

index for primary and secondary school enrolment have a minimum value of 0.872 and the
maximum value of 1.152, with an average value of 1.003. Gender parity index for tertiary
education have a minimum value of 0.406 and maximum value of 1.912, with an average
value of 1.104. Finally, the ratio of female to male labour force participation rate has a
minimum value of 49.057 and the maximum value of 91.332, with an average value of
72.838, have a negatively skewed distribution and standard deviation value of 10.875.
These statistics provide a data trend to the particular variables in a panel of selected OECD
countries.
Table 2 shows the dynamic estimates of panel least square, panel fixed effect and panel
GMM estimator. The results of dynamic panel estimates show that the initial value of per
capita GDP has a significant coefficient value, thus implying inertia in the level of eco-
nomic activities and provide a rationale to use the dynamic panel models. The results of
dynamic panel least square estimates show that there is a significant and positive corre-
lation between income inequality and per capita income, i.e., if there is 1 % increase in
income inequality, per capita income increases by 0.020 percentage points, which con-
firmed the ‘positive’ linear relationship between per capita income and income inequality
in a panel of selected high income OECD countries. However, this result is disappeared in
panel fixed effect regression and panel GMM estimator. The results contrary to the pre-
vious studies of Persson and Tabellini (1994), which argued that rising income inequality
harmful for economic growth; Alderson and Nielsen (2002) argued that income inequality
affected agriculture labour force by transformation of domestic market into international
market through globalization process; Atkinson (2003) argued that rising income
inequality in OECD countries mainly attributed to globalization and technological change;
Coburn (2004) found that neo-liberalism policies not only increase income inequality,
while it further increases poverty and health inequalities across the countries; Smeeding
(2005) confined that although social spending and public policies considerably increases in
United States for tackling income inequality and poverty, however, both the spending and
policies have a lesser impact on U.S income inequality that still increasing in the twenty
first century more than any other rich countries; Cingano (2014) confirmed the negative
and statistical significant relationship between rising income inequality and fallen eco-
nomic growth across the countries. There are few other studies that aligned with the current
study results i.e., Stiftung (2015) concluded that income inequality has both the growth-
promoting effect and growth-dampening effect, which required state legislation interven-
tion to promote growth equality reforms across the globe. Halter et al. (2014) argued that
although higher inequality hurts the economic growth in the long-run, however, income
inequality substantially increases economic growth in the short-run. Therefore, the policies
should be made in a way to reduce the externality of income inequality in the short-run as
well. Delbianco et al. (2014) argued that rising income inequality promote economic
growth of richer countries while it subsequently hurts the growth of lower rich countries.
The judicious redistributive income policy would helpful to promote lower income
economy’s growth contrary to the richer countries.
The findings from panel fixed effect regression model indicate that educational indi-
cators including gender parity index for primary and secondary school enrolment and
gender parity index for tertiary education both significantly augment the per capita income
of the region, while the results of panel GMM estimator only confirm the significance of
gender parity index for primary and secondary school enrolment relative to per capita
GDP. The results confirm that educational equality indicators substantially increase the per
capita income, which is the good sign of recovery to promote pro-equality educational
growth arguments in a panel of high income OECD countries. The results are consistent

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2259

with the previous studies of King and Mason (2001) that highlighted the need of gender
equality for equitable and judicious economic growth and concluded that economic poli-
cies and institutional reforms played an effective role to promote engendering development
across the globe. Kabeer and Natali (2013) search the right direction between economic
growth and gender equality i.e., whether the estimates of gender equality are more con-
sistent and robust in terms of promoting economic growth or vice versa. For this rela-
tionship, the study extensively surveyed the past literature and deduces that engendering
employment and education contributes to more than the reverse direction to economic
growth. Eastin and Prakash (2013) confirmed the ‘S’ shaped relationship between gender
equality and economic growth and argued that gender equality should be traced out with
linear and non-linear growth trajectories in different phases of economic development.
Seguino and Were (2014) suggested the two policy avenues for reducing the gender gap
either in employment and in health care burdens and argued that state should have to
increase their public spending on healthcare burden to reduce the gender gap, while central
bank should have to set their targets to reduce unemployability by their easy monetary
policies. Agénor and Canuto (2015) argued that pro-equality growth reforms in terms of
women to men not only have a substantial impact on economy’s long-run growth while it
has a devastating impact on education and health outcomes. Bandara (2015) highlighted
the importance of gender equality in market competitive forces and concluded that gender
inequality in education and labour force participation rate significantly decline economic
growth of all across the countries. Kim et al. (2016) confined that gender equality has a
significant and positive impact on economic growth through women’s empowerment to
promote human capital agenda.
The findings from panel estimators indicate that health equality indicators including
female to male mortality ratio and female to male smoking prevalence both have a disjoint
impact on economic growth in a panel of countries i.e., dynamic panel least square esti-
mator indicates that as long as female to male mortality ratio increases, it has a negative
impact on economic growth, while this result is not statistical significant in panel fixed
effect regression and panel GMM estimator. However, we may not ignore this important
findings in a given panel contexts as health inequalities hurts the economic growth, which
required strong policy vista to promote engendered development in a region. On the other
way around, panel fixed effect regression and panel GMM estimator indicates that as long
as female to male smoking prevalence increases, economic growth significantly decline
due to health concern of the female gender part. The policies should be made in a way to
reduce the smoking intensity in the genders that would helpful to work at free and stress
less working environment. The results are consistent with the previous study of Sen (1998),
which argued that, ‘‘Mortality information can throw light also on the nature of social
inequalities, including gender bias and racial disparities (p.1)’’. Marmot (2005) presented
the fact that health gross inequalities substantially rises within the countries and across the
countries that have a gigantic problem for the entire world. Therefore, the policies should
be made to reduce global health inequalities and included it into the political agenda for
deliberated actions. Osmani and Sen (2003, p. 105) argued that, ‘‘Gender inequality ….
leads to a double jeopardy—simultaneously aggravating both regimes of diseases and thus
raising the economic cost of overlapping health transition’’. Thomas et al. (2015) opined
that for addressing health associated gender issues required sustained and long-term
political commitment to finance human resources in a more capitalized mode.
The findings from labour market competitiveness in terms of female to male unem-
ployment rate, female to male wages and salaried workers and ratio of female to male
labour force participation rate indicate the bitter picture of the labour market inequalities,

123
 2260

Table 3 Pro-equality growth assessment in high income OECD countries (1980 and 2015). Source Authors’ calculation

123
Country ranks Countries PeGIEDUCATION PeGIHEALTH PeGILABOUR Actual growth PeGI PeGER Decision
rate per capita

1 Greece 47.245 -7.828 0.71 17.124 2.343 40.122 Highly equitable growth
2 Spain 48.134 23.928 1.22 69.723 1.051 73.279 Highly equitable growth
3 France 28.864 25.723 -0.136 52.904 1.029 54.438 Highly equitable growth
4 Australia 59.972 0.844 1.168 81.863 0.757 61.970 Equitable growth
5 Italy 17.391 5.023 -0.003 35.536 0.631 22.423 Moderate equitable growth
6 Luxembourg 38.97 18.165 1.975 150.414 0.393 59.113 Moderate equitable growth
7 Sweden 22.039 0.629 0.266 71.915 0.319 22.941 Less equitable growth
8 USA 29.52 -5.828 0.719 77.708 0.314 24.400 Less equitable growth
9 Austria 13.184 4.896 0.255 73.308 0.25 18.327 Less equitable growth
10 Canada 14.867 -6.73 0.24 57.777 0.145 8.378 Less equitable growth
11 Ireland -14.849 -4.49 -0.406 215.312 -0.092 -19.809 Inequitable growth
12 Finland -6.558 -1.549 -0.438 75.988 -0.112 -8.511 Inequitable growth
13 Iceland -23.553 -3.846 0.186 68.486 -0.397 -27.189 Inequitable growth
14 Germany -17.409 -20.911 -0.146 71.897 -0.535 -38.465 Inequitable growth
15 Portugal -34.514 -7.387 -0.034 73.924 -0.567 -41.915 Inequitable growth
16 Netherland -59.384 -18.774 -0.202 66.819 -1.173 -78.379 Inequitable growth
17 Belgium -67.372 -25.171 0.037 62.02 -1.492 -92.534 Inequitable growth
18 Norway -106.889 -19.666 -1.716 83.555 -1.535 -128.257 Inequitable growth
19 UK -137.264 -12.943 -1.37 91.747 -1.652 -151.566 Inequitable growth
20 Switzerland -126.443 -9.749 0.332 39.005 -3.483 -135.854 Inequitable growth
H. U. R. Khan et al.
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2261

i.e., as long as female to male unemployment rate increases, economic growth of a panel of
high income OECD countries significantly increases, while the increase share of female to
male labour force participation decreases the economic growth of the selected region.
There is a some sign of recovery has been visible in terms of female to male wages and
salaried workers that have a positive association with the economic growth. The pro-
equality growth policies required in order to pronounce equality agenda in a region.
Tzannatos (1999) suggested that for engendered women development it is prerequisite to
implement the following forceful decisions to break the vicious cycle of pro-inequality
women’s growth including equitable pay, legislation for employment equal opportunities,
female labour force participation, reproductive health economic incentives etc. Barbieri
and Cutuli (2015) argued that there is extensive required employment legislation for
market competitiveness to reduce employment inequalities through empowering labour
market reforms across the countries. Florida and Mellander (2016) indicated the two
different forms of wage inequalities i.e., on one side, wage inequality influenced by skill
biased, human capital intensive and metro size, while on the other side, wage inequality is
affected by poverty, unionization, and race. Thus, both the forms of wage inequalities have
a detrimental impact on regional inequalities.
The diagnostic tests of regression indicate the goodness-of-fit of the model by adjusted
R-squared along with the model stability by significant F-statistics. The Sargan-Hansen
J-statistic is used to validate the ‘‘over-identifying restrictions’’ on the coefficients
parameters and it’s obtained during the regression analysis based on instrumental variables
from its residual. This test is evaluated against the alternative hypothesis of no valid over-
identifying restrictions on coefficients parameters, which is based upon the Chi square
values with corrected degree of freedom and the instrumental ranks. Sargan-Hansen
J-statistics confirm the instrumental validity of the prescribed set of lagged explanatory
variables including lagged dependent variable in the given models. After careful assess-
ment of parameter estimates, the study move to estimate pro-equality growth assessment
and classified the selected OECD countries by high equitable growth, moderate
equitable growth, less equitable growth, and inequitable growth. Table 3 shows the pro-
equitable growth assessment in a panel of selected high income OECD countries.
The equitable growth assessment shows that Greece stood the first position, as pro-
equality growth for education and labour market has a positive value while for pro-equality
health index it has a negative value, however, at aggregate the value of PeGI surpassed the
threshold value of unity i.e., 2.343, therefore, we argued that Greece economic growth
policies are highly equitable that increases the PeGER value is about 40.122 % from
17.124 % growth rate during the period of 1980–2015. Spain and France followed at a
second and third place in highly equitable growth node at countrywide. Australia has a
fourth place and shows equitable growth rate, as the value of PeGI is about 0.757, although
it has a less than the threshold value of unity, however, we pronounce that due to sig-
nificant pro-equality growth index for health, education, and labour market, the total PeGI
value is near about the value of one, so economic policies may consider equitable growth
in a country. Italy and Luxembourg subsequently have a fifth and sixth place with mod-
erately pro-equitable growth rate due to having a less value of PeGI i.e., 0.631 and 0.393
respectively, which further decreases the PeGER value of 22.423 and 59.113 % respec-
tively. Sweden, USA, Austria, and Canada placed at seventh to tenth value due to less
equitable growth index below 0.333 values. The remaining ten countries including Ireland,
Finland, Iceland, Germany, Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, Norway, UK, and Switzerland
placed at eleventh to twentieth value due to inequitable growth index value of less than
zero, which shows that these countries have a higher inequality rate which promotes

123
2262 H. U. R. Khan et al.

growth on the cost of education, health, and labour market inequalities. This index works
on pro-equality growth argument that flared with education, health, and labour market
initiatives to support economic equity.

4 Conclusions

The study proposed an index of pro-equality growth in terms of education, health, and the
labour market in a panel of 20 selected high-income OECD countries during the period of
1980–2015. Pro-equality growth in education comprises gender parity index for primary
and secondary school enrolment and for tertiary enrolment while pro-equality growth in
health and labour market includes female to male infant mortality rate, smoking preva-
lence, unemployment, wages and salaried workers, and ratio of female to male labour force
participation rate. The study employed dynamic panel estimators including dynamic panel
least square, panel fixed effect model and panel generalized method of moments (GMM)
for robust inferences. The results of dynamic panel least square show that income
inequality has a positive and significant relationship with economic growth, which implies
that increasing income inequality promotes economic growth that supports the notion of
‘anti-equality argument’. The results of panel fixed effect and panel GMM estimator
confirm that education equity stimulated economic growth, which supports the ‘pro-
equality argument’. Health equity indicates that female to male infant mortality ratio and
smoking prevalence both significantly decline economic growth that required engendered
health reforms. Labour market initiatives for reducing gender gap required massive
reforms in order to provide female employment to sustain the ratio of female to male
labour force participation in a region. The pro-equality growth index classified/rank the
panel of countries in highly equitable growth, moderate, less, and inequitable growth, and
provoke that among 20 high income OECD countries, 3 countries fall in the category of
highly equitable growth, 1 country classified as equitable growth, 2 countries are moder-
ately equitable, 4 countries are less equitable, while remaining 10 countries fall in the
category of inequitable growth. This index works on pro-equality growth argument that
flared with education, health, and labour market initiatives to support economic equity.
On the basis of results, the study drawn the following short-term, medium-term, and
long-term policy implications i.e.,
– Short-term policy Education, health, and labour market inequalities required strong
policy framework to sustained long-term economic growth. Women’s empowerment
has a distinct place of uniqueness in household affairs, which further empower and
utilize in economic affairs. Gender equality in education not only provide a good
platform to spread the voice among the academic and research arena while it would be
devoted for future educational policies to make a sound curriculum with specific
reference of women’s empowerment and success stories in household and economic
businesses. Health equity required specific attention to the policy makers for
developing healthy policy to support women in more pronounced way to legitimize
healthcare infrastructure for their future generation. Labour market rigidities in terms
of gender biased required policy intervention programme to reduce this economic
injustice and promote judicious wage policies, equal employment opportunities,
institutional and law supports etc. that would equalize labour market competitiveness to
promote sound economic growth. The following sub-policy implications are as follows:

123
Gender discrimination in education, health, and labour market… 2263

(i) Government should have to allocate social expenditures budget including

education and health more precisely for women’s empowerment in order to
reduce the possible gender gap and sustained engendered economic
development.
(ii) Feminist health insurance and private health financing required to support for
women’s health in order to support women’s safety at their workplace.
(iii) Women’s right against domestic violence and at workplace need effective
legislative reforms to support from mistreatment and sexual harassment.
(iv) Labour market required strong policy vista to reduce the gender gap in
employment status.
– Medium-term policy Countries classification on the basis of equitable growth is the
initiative to promote judicious income distribution for long-term sustained growth.
Gender gaps in education, health, and labour market not only slow the pace of
economic development, while it has an unbearable impact on economic prosperity,
economic freedom, and economic justice, as promoting equity and women’s
empowerment are the soft solution to engendered economic development. The
following sub-policy implications are as follows:
(i) Countries should have to be socially responsible in order to sustained economic
development by promoting female social status through providing education,
equal employment opportunities, wage unity, healthcare facilities, and sound
legislative reforms for women’s protection.
(ii) Countries should have to liberalize their economic, political, and social policies
to reduce gender gap in labour market, given freedom of political represen-
tation, and providing safety net for utilizing basic needs.
– Long-term policy Economic development and engendered economic policies are linked
up for promoting equitable growth, which should be based upon pro-equality growth
arguments as political initiative. The so-called ‘good’ economic policies, ‘the bad’
economic truncated, and ‘the ugly’ economic discriminations hurts the economic
development, while ‘good’ promotion of women in social wisdom, ‘the better’ political
wisdom, and providing ‘the best’ economic wisdom for making their role in economic
trajectories automate the economy into the next development phases. The following
sub-policy implications for long-term actions i.e.,
– Economic resources always remains valuable and scarce, therefore, the economic
resources should be utilized mainly in education, health, and labour market reforms to
legitimate the social expenditures for long-term economic development.
– In the core objectives of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), women empow-
erment and reducing the gender discrimination stand a vital component for the long-
term economic growth, therefore, this burning issue should be handled and financed by
social expenditures instruments that may helpful to promote ‘health for all’ and
‘education for all’ policies across the countries.
– The skilled based training may further reduce the gender wage gap in labour market.
– The sustained and long-term women empowerment policies draw a window of
opportunities that can improve their accessibility to acquire better education and health
resources.
It is evident that women’s access to education, employment, health etc., remains
potential restrictions to growth in many developed and developing countries, which

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2264 H. U. R. Khan et al.

required massive political and economic interventions to reduce this gender gap for
advocacy and comprehensive gender analysis.

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