Democratization and Gender Equality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since 1990, sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed both greater democratization and improvements in gender equality. This article explores whether there is a causal connection between the two. It develops a dataset for gender (in)equality for forty-one countries stretching back to 1990 that includes data for education, employment, and political representation. It examines whether countries with stronger democratic records have better records with respect to gender equality. It finds no such connection, as several non-democratic countries have also made significant progress on the variables in our (in)equality index.