Institutionalized Inequality and Brain Drain: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Women's Rights on the Gender Gap in High-Skilled Migration

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of gender discrimination, proxied by a women’s rights index, on the female-to-male brain drain ratio. At low levels of women’s rights, increases in the index lead to increases in the female brain drain ratio. This is consistent with, at low levels of women’s rights, prohibitively high costs of migration for females. However, at higher levels of women’s rights, increases in the index are associated with decreases in the female brain drain ratio. A one-point increase in the index is associated with an average of about a 25-percentage point decrease in the female brain drain ratio.

Keywords: Women’s rights, Female brain drain, Gender gap, Migration, Developing countries

JEL Classification: F22, O15, J16, J11, O17