Gender gap and ecological footprint: are there country variations? Evidence from quantile panel regression
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCEFTS-08-2021-0042 |
| Published date | 03 January 2022 |
| Date | 03 January 2022 |
| Pages | 219-238 |
| Subject Matter | Economics,International economics |
| Author | Eman Elish |
Gender gap and ecological
footprint: are there country
variations? Evidence from
quantile panel regression
Eman Elish
Department of Economics, The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of the gender gap on the ecological
footprint(EFP) corresponding to its different quantiles.
Design/methodology/approach –Quantile panel regression for 24 countries from the period 2006 to
2017 will be used, forthe gender gap and other determinants of EFP.
Findings –Each factor affecting EFP differs in its impact depending on the level of EFP quantile it
corresponds to. Gender gap was foundto be increasing EFP for the higher quantilesand decreasing EFP for
the lower quantiles.
Research limitations/implications –Environmental institutions should be considering the role of
gender equalityas a factor affecting the environment. Socioeconomic factorssometimes hamper the role of the
female gender in preserving the environment. There are variations on how EFP factors differ between
individualcountries and this opens areas for further studies.
Originality/value –This research contributes to the currentresearch studies by testing the impact of the
gender gap on EFP instead of CO
2
emission which is widely used in the literature. This topicis considered
understudied and one of the few that uses the quantile panel regression to investigate this impact, none of
which is used in gender and environment studies. Finally, the model used in the study uses a more
comprehensive extension of the “StochasticImpact by Regression on Pollution, Affluence and Technology”
model comparedto the existing empirical studies in this area.
Keywords Ecological footprint, Gender gap, Quantile panel regression
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
There is a growing recognition of the importance of the gender equality dimension and
understanding its impact as an environmental factor on human well-being. Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has emphasized the role of gender in
shaping environmental quality. It was evident that women living in low-income countries
are negatively affected by environmental hazards more than men compared to women
living in high-income countries. Moreover, their participation in environmental decisions
is hampered by traditional social norms constraining their free choice OECD (2021).Itis
affirmed by Nightingale (2006) and Aguilar et al. (2011) that failing to embed gender
environment nexus in national and international policy decision framework is a major
flaw.
Notwithstanding, the relationship between socioeconomic injustices and
environmental degradation was investigated from different angles. In view of income
inequality (Islam, 2015;Brännlund and Ghalwash, 2008;Grunewald et al.,2017;
Kazemzadeh et al.,2021) focused their work on finding if there is a relation between
Gender gap
and ecological
footprint
219
Journalof Chinese Economic and
ForeignTrade Studies
Vol.15 No. 3, 2022
pp. 219-238
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1754-4408
DOI 10.1108/JCEFTS-08-2021-0042
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income inequality and environmental degradation in different nations. However,
there was no consensus on whether the reduction in income inequality would mitigate
environmental degradation, some of them found the opposite (Brännlund and
Ghalwash, 2008;Grunewald et al.,2017). The other form of inequality also
investigated but still not well explored s the nexus between gender inequality and
environmental degradation. Johnsson-Latham (2006) pointed out the importance of
investigating the difference between genders in energy consumption patterns and the
causes of this difference. Solar (2011),Mohai and Saha (2015) and Steffen et al. (2015)
applied their analysis on the individual ecological footprint (EFP) affected by gender
differentiation. Their studies revealed no significant difference between both genders’
demands on consuming natural resources. Austin and Banashek (2018) investigated
the relationship between gender inequality, health and education, economic and
political aspects on EFP on a national level. They asserted for the 114 countries under
study, using ordinary least square (OLS) regression, the positive association between
each gender inequality component and environmental quality. Ergas et al. (2021) used
Prais-Winsten regression models using panel-corrected standard errors they have
used the carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) as an indicator for environmental
impact. Their results revealed that the effect of women’s participation in parliament
and their rate of educational attainment had a significant impact on CIWB and a lower
impact on women’s labor force participation.
Numerous studies used carbon dioxide emission as a dependent variable to
investigate the gender gap impact on the environmental quality (Räty and Carls son-
Kanyama, 2010;Godoy, 2011). The EFP, developed by Wackernagel and Rees (1996)
measures the gap between natural resources supply and demand at the countries,
corporations and individuals’levels. It is expressed in global hectares which is
equivalent to one hectare of landwith global average productivity (Kitzes et al., 2007).
Furthermore, Global Footprint Network is an organization that aims to measure
EFP and it is the main source of its international datab ase (Hayden, 2019). In most
studies, CO
2
emissions are used as an indicator of environmental quality. Using
EFP as a method for quantifying environmental degradation has been widely
approved by many scholars who adopted it as a dependent variable, for this area of
study, Table 1.
Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to investigate the effect of the
gender gap on EFP. The impact of other explanatory variables that affect EFP is also
used to comprehensively detect the factors that affect EFP. The model is used for
developing and developed countries from 2006 to 2017. This research contribution
can be considered innovative, as it attempts to narrow the gap in a few areas of
research in environmental studies. First, it studies the effect of the gender gap on EFP
which is limited to the work of (Solar, 2011;Austin and Banashek, 2018). Second, to
the author’s knowledge this is the first attempt to use the Quantile Panel Regression
to detect country differences in relation to EFP various quantiles has also limited
contributions (Xu and Lin, 2018;Kazemzadeh et al.,2021;Koengkan and José Alberto
Fuinhas, 2021) none of them were related to gender inequality, therefore this current
research to the best of author’s knowledge would be the first. Finally, providing a
comprehensive analysis through the use of more explanatory variables than what is
commonly used in previous studies that have used the “Stochastic Impact by
Regression on Pollution, Affluence and Technology”(STIRPAT) model developed by
Dietz and Rosa (1997),Table 1.
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