Global value chains participation and gender inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Importance of women education

Abstract

In the current climate of international trade paradigm changing, this paper empirically investigates the effects of global value chains (GVCs) participation on gender inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1990 to 2015. The study also highlights the role of women's education in the relationship between GVC participation and gender inequalities. The static panel model specification, followed by the estimation technique robust to cross-sectional dependence augmented by country- and year-fixed effects, enabled to overcome cross-sectional dependence, endogeneity, heteroscedasticity, and error autocorrelation. The findings show that GVC participation is beneficial in reducing gender inequalities in SSA. However, these results indicate that SSA countries must turn towards the upstream GVCs participation to better control gender inequalities. Furthermore, the study finds that GVC participation in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors decreases gender inequalities compared to other sectors. Moreover, improving women's education increases the effects of reducing gender inequalities through GVC participation, especially in the manufacturing and service sectors. These outcomes are useful for policymakers.