Påverkar jämställdhet i läskunnighet den ekonomiska tillväxten?

The fact that human capital has a positive impact on economic growth has been noted by many scholars who have researched the subject. Gender equality in terms of human capital is a relatively new subject that few researchers have explored. Those who have, came to the conclusion that gender equality is significant for economic growth, but the exact effect of it varies. Literacy is defined as the ability to acquire information through written messages and to understand, interpret and on a critical level, judge texts. Thus literacy is important for increasing the level of human capital. My theory is that equality in literacy has an effect on economic growth. To investigate this relationship, I have used panel data for 33 countries over a 35-year period, divided into 8 five-year periods. The aim of the study is, therefore, to investigate the effect that gender equality in literacy has on GDP growth. When including only equality in literacy in the regression, it shows a significant, positive effect on economic growth. To make sure the variable does not pick up on other variable’s effects, the rest of the variables were included in the regression. This resulted in high p-values for “equality in literacy” and which states that the variable does not have a significant effect on economic growth