The ARDL Test of Gender Kuznets Curve for G7 Countries

The Gender Kuznets Curve (GKC) hypothesis argues that economic development has a non-linear effect on the female share of workers. There is, however, growing debate on the exact shape of this non-linear relationship. The aim of this paper is to test the GKC hypothesis in order to determine whether data supports a quadratic or a cubic GKC for each G7 countries in the long run. The ARDL bounds testing approach of cointegration yields evidence for the following: Canada, United Kingdom and United States have an inverted U-shaped GKC; Japan has an S-shaped GKC and France has an inverted-S shaped GKC; and finally that Italy and Germany have no long run GKC relationship in the respective periods of countries considered. We conclude that gender equality is not a direct result of development, and therefore policy makers having a gender equalization policy need to subsidize the employment of female workers in periods of fall.