Does Gender Participation Drive Sustainable Development? Evidence From <scp>G7</scp> and <scp>E7</scp> Economies

ABSTRACT Policy debates on sustainable development often presume that expanding women's participation in the labor market strengthens social, economic, and environmental outcomes. Yet whether female labor‐force participation (FLFP) is systematically aligned with sustainable development—and under what structural conditions—remains empirically unclear. This study provides a comparative assessment of the gender–sustainability relationship across two major global blocs: the E7 emerging economies and the G7 advanced economies, using annual data from 1990 to 2022. Employing a multidimensional Sustainable Development Index (SDI), fixed‐effects panel models, interaction specifications, and robustness checks based on adjusted net savings and dynamic lag structures, the analysis adopts an associational framework. The results reveal marked heterogeneity across development stages. In the E7 economies, FLFP is positively associated with SDI in cross‐country comparisons, but shows no robust within‐country association once fixed effects are introduced, and is negatively related to long‐term sustainability measured by adjusted net savings. Interaction results further indicate that periods of intensified green transition and rapid digital expansion coincide with a weaker alignment between female labor participation and sustainability outcomes. In contrast, in the G7 economies, within‐country increases in FLFP are not associated with improvements in sustainability, and this relationship is not systematically enhanced by governance effectiveness, green‐jobs exposure, or digitalization. Component‐level analyses show that aggregate SDI movements mask offsetting income, social, and ecological dynamics. Overall, the findings suggest that female labor participation does not automatically translate into sustainability gains; its relevance depends on whether structural conditions enable women's economic participation to be productivity‐enhancing and environmentally inclusive.