Gender Differences in Socio-Emotional Skills and Economic Outcomes : New Evidence from 17 African Countries

Using data from 41,873 individuals across 17 African countries and 13 studies, this paper maps data from various self-reported scales to 10 socio-emotional skills and examine gender differences in these skills and their relationship with education and earnings. Apart from self-control, the findings show a significant male advantage in self-reported skills - men have an aggregate socio-emotional skill level 0.151 standard deviations higher than women, equivalent to the socio-emotional skill gained over 5.6 years of education. This is robust to controlling for positive self-concept. Closing the gender gap in education would close 17percent of this gap. While overall socio-emotional skill and education are positively correlated for both men and women, women do not have a positive correlation with education for some individual socio-emotional skills. The male advantage in socio-emotional skills increases at higher education levels. Socio-emotional skills are associated with higher earnings, especially for women. However, the specific skills associated with higher earnings differ by gender. Interpersonal skills are more strongly correlated with earnings for women than for men, and measures of these skills are often underrepresented, which indicates a key direction for future research. The paper further examines differences in the relationship between socio-emotional skills and earnings by levels of education and occupation. It discusses the implications of these results for interventions seeking to hone women's socio-emotional skills for labor market success and to address the gender norms that may perpetuate gaps in socio-emotional skills