Gender Equality and Its Role in Determining How Economic Complexity Affects Human Development in Selected Countries

Today, the economic complexity index, which measures the knowledge used in production, is a more appropriate standard than economic growth for measuring human development. In addition, gender equality helps produce higher knowledge by creating equal opportunities for women and men. Therefore, this research aims to examine the developmental effects of gender equality and its role in determining how economic complexity affects the human development index. In this way, first, the convergent countries are classified in technology among 80 countries with the club convergence approach. Next, the model’s analysis of how gender equality affects human development in model (1) using the method of moment quantile regression (MMQREG) is investigated. Furthermore, model (2) analyzes the consequences of economic complexity on human development through the lens of gender equality. The results of the model estimation indicated that increasing economic complexity increases human development in all the quantiles. In addition, the gender equality channel strengthens the developmental effects of the knowledge-based economy in all the quantiles. Some things about the novelty of this research are worthy of consideration: First, this study defines the new channel (gender equality) of economic complexity’s effects on human development. Second, the use of country convergence criteria to select a panel of countries. Thirdly, using the new panel method of moment quantile regression (MMQREG) helps to provide strong and reliable results. The policy implications of this study are the role of knowledge creation and the promotion of gender equality in the well-being of societies.