Measuring the impact of democracy on gender equality: does choice of index matter?

Using a variety of indicators, the study tries to analyze the impact of democracy on gender equality for a sample of 159 countries across the world. For this purpose, the study used static panel data models and applied various tests of robustness to estimate the impact of democracy on gender equality. It is found that the effect of democracy on gender equality is uncertain and sensitive to the interchangeability of various gender equality indices. However, the replacement of various democracy indices does not cause any substantial change in the results. The impact of democracy on gender equality is almost insignificant, but certain components of democracy like political participation and government functioning have positive impacts in improving the levels of gender equality. Among the control variables, economic growth and population size emerge as the positive determinants of gender equality.