Gender equality in Asia and Europe during the 20th century: The role of socialism

• Height can be used to estimate gender equality after adjusting for average height. • Socialism mitigated son bias in Azerbaijan, in contrast to non-socialist Iran. • Gender equality in health and education improved in socialist states. Whether socialism improved gender equality, or whether the double-burden effect of socialism lowered gender equality, is an unresolved debate. A novel indicator allows to address this question for 88 countries during the 1910s to 1980s period: the adjusted height gap between males and females. Both biological and economic determinants of height gaps need to be considered. The proposed measure is validated through comparisons with relative life expectancies and the Gender Development Index (GDI), demonstrating its utility for tracing gender equality trends. Regression analysis reveals a significant relationship between socialism and improved gender equality within Europe and Asia. The results are confirmed by comparing them to gender equality in education. Robustness checks using staggered Difference-in-Differences methods and instrumental variable estimation suggest a robust and consistently positive relationship between socialism and gender equality.