Publication:
Gendered Language

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dc.contributor.authorJakiela, Pamela
dc.contributor.authorOzier, Owen
dc.date.accessioned2018-06-18T21:29:12Z
dc.date.available2018-06-18T21:29:12Z
dc.date.issued2018-06
dc.description.abstractLanguages use different systems for classifying nouns. Gender languages assign many -- sometimes all -- nouns to distinct sex-based categories, masculine and feminine. Drawing on a broad range of historical and linguistic sources, this paper constructs a measure of the proportion of each country's population whose native language is a gender language. At the cross-country level, this paper documents a robust negative relationship between the prevalence of gender languages and women's labor force participation. It also shows that traditional views of gender roles are more common in countries with more native speakers of gender languages. In African countries where indigenous languages vary in terms of their gender structure, educational attainment and female labor force participation are lower among those whose native languages are gender languages. Cross-country and individual-level differences in labor force participation are large in both absolute and relative terms (when women are compared to men), suggesting that the observed patterns are not driven by development or some unobserved aspect of culture that affects men and women equally. Following the procedures proposed by Altonji, Elder, and Taber (2005) and Oster (2017), this paper shows that the observed correlations are unlikely to be driven by unobservables. Using a permutation test based on the structure of the language tree and the distribution of languages across countries, this paper demonstrates that the results are not driven by spurious correlations within language families. Gender languages appear to reduce women's labor force participation and perpetuate support for unequal treatment of women.en
dc.identifierhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405621528167411253/Gendered-language
dc.identifier.doi10.1596/1813-9450-8464
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10986/29893
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherWorld Bank, Washington, DC
dc.relation.ispartofseriesPolicy Research Working Paper;No. 8464
dc.rightsCC BY 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holderWorld Bank
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo
dc.subjectLABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
dc.subjectLINGUISTIC DETERMINISM
dc.subjectEDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
dc.subjectGENDER
dc.subjectFEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
dc.titleGendered Languageen
dc.typeWorking Paperen
dc.typeDocument de travailfr
dc.typeDocumento de trabajoes
dspace.entity.typePublication
okr.crossref.titleGendered Language
okr.date.disclosure2018-06-04
okr.doctypePublications & Research
okr.doctypePublications & Research::Policy Research Working Paper
okr.docurlhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405621528167411253/Gendered-language
okr.guid405621528167411253
okr.identifier.doi10.1596/1813-9450-8464
okr.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-8464
okr.identifier.externaldocumentum090224b085bf8c2c_2_0
okr.identifier.internaldocumentum29957686
okr.identifier.reportWPS8464
okr.importedtrueen
okr.language.supporteden
okr.pdfurlhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405621528167411253/pdf/WPS8464.pdfen
okr.statistics.combined15892
okr.statistics.dr405621528167411253
okr.statistics.drstats14921
okr.topicGender::Gender and Development
okr.topicGender::Gender and Economics
okr.topicGender::Gender and Education
okr.topicGender::Gender and Social Development
okr.topicSocial Protections and Labor::Labor Markets
okr.unitDevelopment Research Group, Development Economics
relation.isSeriesOfPublication26e071dc-b0bf-409c-b982-df2970295c87
relation.isSeriesOfPublication.latestForDiscovery26e071dc-b0bf-409c-b982-df2970295c87
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