Micro-Review

For the 4 research questions, we will apply slightly different methods for our review.

While for research questions 1-3, we will do a systematic review of the evidence by collecting all relevant studies and then qualitatively assessing them in a structured framework, for research question 4 we additionally will undertake an econometric meta-analysis of impact evaluations.

We would consider interventions with particular emphasis on low-income countries (but also including evidence from middle-income countries where it is particularly relevant). The emphasis would be in interventions that aim at empowering women by: 

i) improving access to education 
ii) fostering employment opportunities
iii) providing financial access
iv) fostering political participation
v) allocating income to women
vi) reforming discriminatory laws
vii) improve children's development outcomes

To understand how the effectiveness of the interventions varies according to the social and institutional context, we would also use information from the social institutions and gender index (SIGI) (Branisa et al. 2013). The analysis would also consider heterogeneity of outcomes by region. We would aggregate the countries studied into six groups, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East-European and Asian countries in transition.

For the empirical review of theoretical and macro studies, we only include studies that specifically have economic growth as the outcome variable and consider gender gaps in key factors affecting economic growth. Most of these studies focus on gender gaps in education, employment, pay, governance, and health on economic growth. 

For the micro studies (questions 3 and 4), we would focus on papers that have a quantitative emphasis and that allow estimating the magnitudes of the effects of female empowerment on at least one of the following outcomes that have a direct or indirect impact on economic growth: Income, savings, investments, wages, returns to capital, inter-generational effects of gender inequality such as fertility, child mortality, investment in education, school attendance and health and nutritional outcomes of children.