Closing the Gender Gap in Secondary School Enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa: Does women's political empowerment matter?

This study investigates the effect of female political empowerment on gender equality in secondary school enrolment in a sample of 20 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries over the period 2000-2017. Results from Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Instrumental variable (IV)-Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) reveal that the gender gap in secondary education decreases with female political empowerment. Therefore, increasing the representation of women in politics is an important lever of economic policy to improve the secondary education of women, allowing them to be more productive and more fulfilled.