Gender Gap in the Paid Economic Activity and Economic Growth in the CEMAC Zone

The aim of this paper is to determine the impact on the economic growth rates in the CEMAC zone of the gender gap in terms of participation in paid economic activity. For that, we carry out a panel data analysis after having elaborated a balanced growth model integrating the gender aspect. The results obtained show that the improvement of the woman/man parity index in the paid economic activity has a significant at 5% level and positive impact in the long run on the economic growth in the CEMAC zone. The step-by-step model enables us to notice that this impact is significant only if the improvement of the gender index is accompanied by a rise of the fixed capital gross formation. The parameters obtained from the regression enable us to estimate for each country of CEMAC zone the sexo-specific growth rates of the GDP per capita (i.e. the growth rates that one would have observed in the event of perfect equality of chances between men and women as regards participation in a paid economic activity) and thus the profits in terms of economic performance and to plot for each country the sexo-specific growth paths. According to these estimates, implementing policies aiming at reducing the existing gap between men and women in the apid activity would be beneficial for all the economies of the CEMAC zone in terms of economic performance.