Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216438 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13126
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Languages use different systems for classifying nouns. Gender languages assign nouns to distinct sex-based categories, masculine and feminine. We construct a new data set, documenting the presence or absence of grammatical gender in more than 4,000 languages which together account for more than 99% of the world's population. We find a robust negative cross-country relationship between prevalence of gender languages and women's labor force participation and educational attainment. We replicate these associations in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and in India, showing that educational attainment and female labor force participation are lower among those whose native languages use grammatical gender.
Subjects: 
grammatical gender
language
gender
linguistic determinism
labor force participation
educational attainment
gender gaps
JEL: 
J16
Z10
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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