The Impact of Women Parliamentarians on Economic Growth: Modelling & Statistical Analysis of Empirical Global Data

Eman Khorsheed

doi:10.5539/ijsp.v9n3p23

Abstract

The impact of empowering women on economic growth is investigated through testing the influence of proportion of women candidates in parliaments. To obtain a long-term view, cross-country analysis is performed in parallel using 10 years World Bank data of 72 countries divided into the UN income-groups: 1-high, 2-upper-middle, 3-lower-middle, and 4- low-income. Statistical analysis reveals severe degree of multicollinearity. To unveil the desired connection, two approaches are implemented. Principle Component Regression is used to assess the independent impact of women parliamentarians. The results demonstrate a positive significant influence: 10% increase in female parliamentarians increase growth by 0.27%, 0.36%, 0.22%, and 0.49%, respectively. To unveil the joint influence of the considered indicators, interaction regression models are developed. The method demonstrates superior results. This work provides an empirical evidence on the positive impact of women political empowerment with respect to stimulating a sustainable economic growth.

Highlights

Growth has always been considered as one of the main economic goals (McConnell, Brue, & Flynn, 2002)
This work provides an empirical evidence on the positive impact of women political empowerment with respect to stimulating a sustainable economic growth
The study conducted by Lucas (1988) emphasizes the role of education and time allocated between work and skills acquisition on generating economic growth

Summary

Introduction

Growth has always been considered as one of the main economic goals (McConnell, Brue, & Flynn, 2002). Solow and SWAN (1956) built an exogenous model that links economic growth with population growth, saving rates, capital accumulation, and technological progress. Endogenous models consider the accumulation of human capital as the main engine of growth, which the first is due to Lucas (1988). In this latter model, the inputs are investments in human capital or in information spillover from accumulation of physical capital, which in the existence of technological progress reveals greater output (Barro, 1996). Gender gaps in economic participation can result in huge GDP losses across nations of all income levels as reported by Elborgh-Woytek et al (2013) and Stotsky (2006)

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Conclusion