Does Women’s Political Empowerment Matter for Income Inequality?

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between women’s political empowerment and income inequality in a global sample of 142 countries from 1990 to 2019. Employing a combination of machine learning techniques with an instrumental variable panel data approach, the analysis reveals a significant negative association between women’s political empowerment and income inequality. The robustness of this finding is confirmed through sensitivity analyses addressing concerns on the impact of unobserved heterogeneity and violations of the exclusion restriction. Crucially, the results support the hypothesis that the primary mechanism through which women’s political empowerment reduces income inequality is the implementation of redistributive policies, suggesting that increased female presence in politics leads to more egalitarian economic outcomes.