Gender Budgeting in Education: A Nonlinear Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

To test the role of government education expenditure in gender inequality in education, we have developed a nonlinear hypothesis that below a certain level of government education expenditure, an increase in the government education expenditure leads to an increase in gender inequality in education (inducing the inequality), and when this critical threshold of government expenditure on education is attained, an increase in government education expenditure leads to a decrease in gender inequality in education (deterring the inequality). The fact that increases in government expenditure on education can initially exacerbate gender inequality in education can be attributed to the gender-blind approach to budget allocation, which may consequently reinforce rather than compensate for initial access disparities. However, beyond a certain threshold, the implementation of gender budgeting practices makes resource allocation more targeted and inclusive, paving the way for a reduction in gender inequality in education. This mechanism predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between education expenditure and gender inequality in education. We found robust evidence in accordance with the hypothesis for a sample of 122 countries over the period of 1998-2021 with the System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) Analysis.