Can Progressive Taxation Address Gender Inequality in Income? Cross-National Evidence of Gender Differences in Income Tax Payment Patterns and Post-Tax Income

Gender difference in taxation is generally understudied, especially in sociology literature, which often overlooks taxation as a social phenomenon. While a small literature, studies on gender and taxation from a wider range of disciplines have offered and tested some core mechanisms producing gender difference in tax payment and post-tax income. One such mechanism is degree of tax progressivity. Most research on progressivity and gender difference in taxation analyzes one or two countries. Less research has used cross-national methods and larger samples of countries. This paper uses the most recent dataset for 27 countries (Waves IX, X, XI, from 2013 to 2018) from the Luxembourg Income Study Database (LIS) and a sample of single working men and women between the ages of 25 and 64 to address unanswered questions about the relationship between tax progressivity and gender differences in income tax payment and post-tax income. As expected, progressive taxation taxes men at a higher rate when gender income gaps favor men, while, in countries with less progressive taxation, men paid rates more similar to women, regardless of gender gap size. Income tax progressivity was also associated with greater gender equality in income post-tax. These results support tax progressivity as a tool for producing more gender-equal income distributions post-tax. Alongside previous research, these findings indicate that policymakers seeking greater gender equity should prioritize both progressive taxation and individual tax filing. Such arrangements allow progressive taxation to support gender equality in income without discouraging labor force participation for coupled women.