Green growth has become a driving force to address global climate change and promote economic development, but meanwhile it has raised the entry barriers of green industries and intensified the risk of gender inequality in higher education. This paper uses information on green products to construct a green complexity index based on economic complexity. Then, the green growth level of 126 countries is measured with the Green Complexity Index and the two-way fixed effects model is adopted to examine whether the relationship between green growth and gender inequality in higher education follows an inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve. Green growth contributes to gender equality in higher education in terms of access to educational opportunities. Increases in the green growth level improve women’s access to higher education before the occurrence of the turning point of the Kuznets curve, while after passing the turning point, increases in the green growth level promote men’s access to higher education. Meanwhile, before the occurrence of the turning point of the Kuznets curve, green products with comparative advantages are relatively low in complexity, which raises the demand for low-skilled and middle-skilled jobs and increases the opportunities for women to receive higher education. On the contrary, after the occurrence of the turning point, the complexity of the green products with comparative advantages increases, which induces higher entry barriers for women to enter the green industries and restricts their major choices in higher education. Therefore, green growth may exacerbate gender inequality in higher education in terms of major selection.
Zou et al. (Sun,) studied this question.