Gender inequality in education and economic growth

Abstract: The objective of this thesis is to examine the impact of gender inequality in education on economic growth using Sub-Saharan African countries. Two gender inequality indicators are used: the gap in female to male primary and secondary enrolment. The core of this study was built on the Solow Model but augmented using both human capital and health care expenditure (HCE) Per capita. The empirical analysis is centred on annual data for 40 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990-2018. The method of estimation employed is both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Fixed effect within-group estimator in a panel data set. Thus, the main findings of this paper suggest that there exists a statistically significant negative relationship of gender inequality in education at the primary and secondary level on economic growth and a negative effect of female labour participation on economic growth.