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Gesture Politics or Real Commitment? Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid

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  • Dreher, Axel
  • Gehring, Kai
  • Klasen, Stephan

Abstract

We investigate whether donors give more aid to countries with larger gender gaps in education, health, or women’s rights, and whether they reward improvements in those indicators. We find some evidence that high gender gaps in education and health are associated with higher allocation of aid in those sectors and aid overall. Greater female political representation also appears to come along with higher aid flows. While we find no systematic evidence that donors allocate funds with regard to merit, our results show that donors are more responsive to inequalities in countries that provide good legal rights for women.

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  • Dreher, Axel & Gehring, Kai & Klasen, Stephan, 2015. "Gesture Politics or Real Commitment? Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 464-480.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:70:y:2015:i:c:p:464-480
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.07.016
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    6. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2015. "Do Development Minister Characteristics Affect Aid Giving?," Working Papers 0604, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
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    8. Ranjula Bali Swain & Supriya Garikipati & Fan Yang Wallentin, 2020. "Does Foreign Aid Improve Gender Performance in Recipient Countries?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1171-1193, October.
    9. Cardwell, Ryan & Ghazalian, Pascal L., 2018. "The effects of aid agency independence on bilateral aid allocation decisions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 136-148.
    10. Faik Bilgili & Masreka Khan & Ashar Awan, 2023. "Is there a gender dimension of the environmental Kuznets curve? Evidence from Asian countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 2387-2418, March.
    11. Hicks, Daniel L. & Hicks, Joan Hamory & Maldonado, Beatriz, 2016. "Women as policy makers and donors: Female legislators and foreign aid," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 46-60.
    12. Raphael J. Nawrotzki & Verena Gantner & Jana Balzer & Thomas Wencker & Sabine Brüntrup-Seidemann, 2022. "Strategic Allocation of Development Projects in Post-Conflict Regions: A Gender Perspective for Colombia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, February.
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    14. Quamruzzaman, Amm & Lange, Matthew, 2016. "Female political representation and child health: Evidence from a multilevel analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 48-57.

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