Gender equality in politics at home and promotion of gender equality in politics abroad: The role of bilateral official development assistance
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512118757127 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Author | Mi Yung Yoon,Chungshik Moon |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118757127
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(2) 161 –180
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512118757127
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Gender equality in politics at home
and promotion of gender equality in
politics abroad: The role of bilateral
official development assistance
Mi Yung Yoon
Hanover College, USA
Chungshik Moon
Chung-Ang University, South Korea
Abstract
Does gender equality in politics in donor countries affect the allocation to recipient countries of official
development assistance in support of gender equality in politics? Since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action and the launch of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in 2000, gender
equality has been underscored as an important development goal for donors. We hypothesize that donors
with higher levels of gender equality in politics are likely to allocate more aid to recipients with lower levels
of gender equality in politics to promote the equality in politics in those countries. We expect this positive
relationship to be even more significant after the launch of the Millennium Development Goals. Using a time-
series cross-sectional design covering country dyads for the period, 1990–2012, we find evidence supporting
our hypotheses.
Keywords
Official development assistance, female political representation, gender equality, gender ideology,
millennium development goals
Introduction
The global initiatives generated by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and
the United Nations Millennium Summit (2000) propelled gender equality to the top of the develop-
ment community’s agenda. In line with the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (hereafter
Corresponding author:
Chungshik Moon, Department of Political Science and International Relations, College of Social Sciences, Chung-Ang
University, 84 Heukseok Road, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul, Korea.
Email: sarim799@gmail.com
757127IPS0010.1177/0192512118757127International Political Science ReviewYoon and Moon
research-article2018
Article
162 International Political Science Review 40(2)
Beijing Declaration), members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) collectively adopted gender
equality as a new development objective in 1996 (OECD, 1999) and individually incorporated
gender equality into their subsequent bilateral official development assistance (ODA) strategies.
DAC members began to see gender disparity—which undermines women’s capacity to grow—as
a roadblock to development, and adopted gender equality as ‘a strategic objective’ of poverty
reduction and development (OECD, 1999: 36). The launch of the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000—which include promotion of gender equality and women’s
empowerment (MDG 3)—strengthened the donors’ political will to promote gender equality
through aid (GENDERNET, 2014), as demonstrated by the gradual increase in the DAC’s aid com-
mitment to gender equality (see Table 1).
Though committed to gender equality abroad, not all DAC members are role models for its
practice. The Global Gender Gap Index, published by the World Economic Forum (2015), has
quantified ‘the magnitude of gender-based disparities’ since 2006.1 In 2015, Iceland, Norway,
Finland, Sweden, and Ireland topped the global ranking with the narrowest gender gaps; the Czech
Republic, Greece, the Slovak Republic, Japan, and Korea lagged behind (see Table 2). Of multiple
dimensions of gender equality (e.g., education, health, economic participation, and political repre-
sentation), politics displays the widest gender gap worldwide. According to the Inter-Parliamentary
Union (2015), as of 1 June 2015, the world average of women in the lower house of parliament was
22.5%. However, female parliamentary representation was below this average in DAC countries
such as Ireland (16.3%), Japan (9.5%), Korea (16.3%), the Slovak Republic (18.7%), and the USA
(19.4%) (see Table 2).
Does the level of gender equality in politics at home affect ODA allocation in support of gender
equality in politics abroad and what effect did the launch of the MDGs have on ODA allocation to
promote gender equality in politics? This study examines the relationship between varying degrees
of gender equality in politics in donor countries and ODA allocations to narrow the gender gap in
politics in recipient countries, particularly taking into account the launch of the MDGs. We hypoth-
esize that donor countries with higher levels of gender equality in politics are likely to allocate
Table 1. Total annual commitment of gender equality based bilateral official development assistance
(ODA) of Development Assistance Committee members (constant 2013 US$ in millions).
Year Amount
2002 11,319
2003 10,807
2004 12,890
2005 15,352
2006 19,466
2007 19,327
2008 27,037
2009 31,681
2010 28,118
2011 28,904
2012 31,003
2013 33,899
2014 36,959
Source: OECD (2017a).
Note: The data on gender-equality-based ODA allocation are available from 2002.
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