Assessment of the Gender Gap in Sudan

Abstract

This paper examines the gender gap in education and investigates the related implications on the labour market and returns to education in Sudan. Our results confirm two stylized facts: first, the incidence of significant gender gap in education in Sudan and second, the incidence of gender inequalities and gap in skill level, share of women in economic activities, labour force participation rate, employment and returns to education can be interpreted in relation to the incidence of gender gap in education. We fill the gap in the Sudanese literature by addressing the gender gap in education and related implications in labour market and returns to education, since these issues are not adequately discussed in the Sudanese literature. A novel element in our analysis is that we use new primary survey data at the micro level to show the gap and differences in returns to education and correlation between wage and education, experience and its square defined by gender in Sudan. Our findings at the micro level imply that the slight gender gap or difference in the rate of return to education in favour of women is only 0.2 which is not very noticeable. These findings indicate the importance of enhancing educational attainment for women to facilitate improvement of return to education for women. We find that in general women are likely to be more unemployed than men. The major policy implications and recommendations from our analysis are that Sudan needs to reduce the gender gap in education and related implication in the labour market. By investing large amounts of resources in increasing women's educational attainment, improving economic participation, increasing employment opportunities and improving equal and fair returns to education for Sudanese women to better integrate Sudanese women into the economy to reap the benefits of investment in empowerment of women.