Although girls are approximately half the youth population in developing countries, they contribute less than their potential to the economy. The objective of this paper is to quantify the opportunity cost of girls'exclusion from productive employment with the hope that stark figures will lead...

This study explores the relationship between mandating a nondiscrimination clause in hiring practices along gender lines and the employment of women versus men in 58 developing countries. The study finds a strong positive relationship between a nondiscrimination in hiring clause and women's...

Using a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal documents in one's own name, and...

This paper provides an overview of the recent performance of the labor market in Vietnam during the Great Recession. The analysis uses data from the Labor Force Survey and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey. The author finds that, notwithstanding the global crisis and domestic...

This paper documents and analyzes gender differences in the use of financial services using individual-level data from 98 developing countries. The data, drawn from the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database, highlight the existence of significant gender gaps in ownership of...

The importance of gender equality is reflected not only in the Millennium Development Goals, but also in the World Bank's Gender Action Plan launched in 2007 as well as in other treaties and actions undertaken at regional and international levels. Unlike other work on gender and poverty, which...

This paper is the first to show that excess mortality among adult women can be partly explained by strong preference for male children, the same cultural norm widely known to cause excess mortality before birth or at young ages. Using pooled individual-level data for India, the paper compares...

This paper studies the impact of gender and ethnicity on educational outcomes using cross-country evidence from Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. It uses the Minnesota Population Center's Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-International database, which includes...

This paper proposes a model to analyze the implications of colonial policies for gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. The model emphasizes segmentation of production under complete specialization. It shows that the colonial production model, underpinned by occupational job segregation in the...