Synthesizing explanations behind global gender (in)equality: Identifying the gaps and moving forward with more economic history

Abstract

This article aims to bridge the mainstream social science and the economic history literatures on the drivers of gender equality across contexts. We discuss the explanations in the social science literature on five central dimensions of global gender equality—health, work, education, marriage, and political representation—and survey the economic history literature that studied these explanations in the historical context. We analyze the commonalities and contradictions in the theoretical and methodological approaches of the two strands. The survey then offers an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that can bridge the two strands. By doing so, the review article discusses how incorporating the economic history literature into the social science literature can improve our current understanding of global gender equality in two ways. First, the long durée perspective provides insight into the diversity in the historical turning points in gender equality across world regions over the 20th century. Second, it suggests that the integration of a historical perspective can tackle the difficulties in isolating causal mechanisms and identify why standard economic and institutional conditions have varying impacts on gender equality outcomes across world regions. It also identifies the limitations in the current social science and economic history literatures and provide directions for future research.