Lecture by Seema Jayachandran on gender gaps that disadvantage women and girls – in employment, education, health, and more – tend to be bigger in lower-income countries than in higher-income countries. This lecture discusses why economic progress often helps bring about more gender equality, and, conversely, why gender inequality slows economic progress. It will also discuss some exceptions to the rule that economic development brings about gender equality – and how public policy can help alleviate this tension.

Professor Jayachandran holds a doctorate in Economics from Harvard University and a master’s degree in Physics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford. She is a board member of the international humanitarian organization CARE and board member of the Abdul Latif Jameel Action Poverty Laboratory (J-PAL), where she is the director of the gender section. She co-leads the program of the National Bureau of Economic Research of the United States and is the co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.

This conference is part of the Kapuscinski Development Lectures organized by the European Union and the United Nations Development Program and hosted by the University of Barcelona School of Economics.  The Kapuscinski Development Lectures started in 2009, and since then, there have been 130 conferences in several countries worldwide. The cycle, which is named after the Polish writer and reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski, consists of high-level conferences about topics related to the development, such as climate change, human rights or the effectiveness of development aid, among others.