The Impact of Gender Inequality on Economic Growth in Indonesia

Abstract

Gender is a difference behaviours between men and women are not determined by biological differences, but by the socio-cultural environment, politics and economics. Gender inequality persists in all aspects of life in Indonesia, there are gaps between the achievement of the benefits of development on women and men related to basic human needs for jobs, education, and health. This is despite the fact there is a fairly rapid progress in gender equality today. The nature and extent of discrimination varies in different regions / provinces. According to the United Nations Development Programme (2010), there is no one else in the area of third world countries women have enjoyed equal rights in the legal, social and economic. Gender inequality in education among other things, employment, access to resources, economic power, and political participation. Women bear the heaviest burden due to inequality, but inequality is detrimental basically everyone and ultimately harm the economy of a country. Indonesia is one country that is experiencing a rapid development in reducing disparities in education between men and women that is characterized by the narrowing gap between men and women in educational attainment levels. However, the level of productivity and labor force participation of women is still low. The role of women in development needs to be considered in national and regional development policies. Because of the increased role of women has a significant impact in breaking the vicious circle of poverty. Improvement of human quality of education of women in particular is an important issue because it determines the quality of life for future generations. The objectives of this research are to analyze the gender inequality in Indonesia by using Gender Development Index (GDI), to analyze the effect of gender gaps in education and employment (proxied by using gender gap in mean years of schooling and labor force participation) on economic growth. This research uses panel data from 30 provinces during 2003-2012. Gender inequality index is represented by a proxy of ratio GDI to HDI. Descriptive analysis results show that there are gender inequality, there are still distances between Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender Development Index (GDI). Econometric analysis with FEM (Fixed Effect Model) determines that there are positive and significant effect of education, female-male mean years of schooling, employment, female-male labor force participation, and gender inequality index on economic growth.