Women’s Rights and Global Development Policy

Talk by Anna Minasyan (University of Groningen) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

This study examines the impact of gender-marked bilateral development aid on women’s legal  rights and economic participation in aid-eligible countries from 1990 to 2021. Using a panel dataset combining gender-marked aid data with the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database, we employ two econometric methods – panel fixed effects with unit-specific trends and a shift- share instrumental variable approach. Our results suggest that gender-marked aid promotes legal reforms advancing women’s economic rights. We also find a positive association between this aid and women’s employment in the industry sector, but no such effect for the services or agriculture sectors. These findings highlight the potential of targeted aid to support gender equality reforms and enhance women’s economic participation.