In this paper, we address the question of whether official development assistance promotes gender equality in the Middle East and North Africa region by examining the effects of aid to Women's Equality Organizations and Institutions on women's political empowerment, measured by the proportion of...

The aid allocation literature has neglected gender-specific needs for aid. We assess the hypothesis that gender inequality in education is more likely to affect the aid allocation of donor countries with female leadership in the relevant ministry. We find no evidence for a needs-based allocation...

This paper examines peer effects on students' gender norm perceptions and skills formation. I use a Uruguayan nationally representative survey of 9th grade students and exploit the quasi-random variation in the proportion of female peers across classes within schools for causal identification....

This paper discusses cultural barriers to women's participation and success in the labor market in developing countries. I begin by describing how gender norms influence the relationship between economic development and female employment, as well as how gender norms differ substantially across...

One-third of married women are sterilized in India. This is largely due to family planning programs that put a strong emphasis on 'permanent' contraceptive methods rather than temporary ones. However, little is known about potential adverse effects on women's wellbeing. We analyse the...

This paper describes the very different role played by female elites in contemporary developing countries, as compared to the 'early' industrializing countries of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It shows that women are far more important in business and politics in today's developing...

Whether policy support should be designed differently for women entrepreneurs is a particularly relevant question. To answer this, and to inform the design of policies to provide appropriate support for women entrepreneurs, the paper compares male and female perceptions of typical...

This paper examines the impact of gender based violence against women and girls (GBV), in the environment the children live in, on school attendance, school achievement, as well as boys' and girls' dropouts. Based on the sixth phase of the Demographic and Health Surveys from 18 sub-Saharan...

This paper sets out to investigate the wellbeing of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It undertakes spatial and temporal comparisons of women's wellbeing using data from the Demographic and Health Survey and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Using the multidimensional...

This paper examines gender inequality and female empowerment in rural Viet Nam. Using an extensive panel dataset on 2,181 households, we examine how the welfare of women living in rural areas has evolved during a period of dramatic rural transformation, 2008 - 14. We find that while the economic...