Patterns of Global Gender Inequalities and Regional Gender Regimes

Abstract

This article draws on data from various sources for 190 developed and developing nations and uses them to examine gender regimes, or forms of patriarchal structures, at the regional level. I argue for multiple, rather than single, measures of gender inequality and illustrate that using many inequality measures exposes a wider range of outcomes within the Global South than the North, also suggesting the inefficacy of this geographic dichotomy. Then I re-examine the outcomes with nations grouped into seven regions, showing that each region has different variables that define their gender inequalities. Finally, I link gendered social institutions (e.g., laws on violence/physical integrity, family codes, civil liberties, and ownership rights) and implicitly gendered political-economic structures (e.g., IMF debt, armed conflict, ever having been a colony, and electoral democracy) to gender-inequitable outcomes in six regions to reveal three different gender regimes across the regions.