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Research Article

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Contributed equally to this work with: Paola Belingheri, Filippo Chiarello, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, Paola Rovelli

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

• Paola Belingheri, 
• Filippo Chiarello, 
• Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, 
• Paola Rovelli

• Published: September 21, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474
• Reader Comments

9 Nov 2021: The PLOS ONE Staff (2021) Correction: Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLOS ONE 16(11): e0259930. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259930 View correction

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Citation: Belingheri P, Chiarello F, Fronzetti Colladon A, Rovelli P (2021) Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0256474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474

Editor: Elisa Ughetto, Politecnico di Torino, ITALY

Received: June 25, 2021; Accepted: August 6, 2021; Published: September 21, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Belingheri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Funding: P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t001

Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t002

Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g001

Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g002

Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g003

In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.g004

There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.t003

Compensation.

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making.

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression.

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance.

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization.

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital.

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

S1 text. keywords used for paper selection..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.s001

Acknowledgments

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

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Role of Gender Equality in Development - a Literature Review

44 Pages Posted: 27 Dec 2005

Anne Mikkola

University of Helsinki and HECER - Department of Economics

Date Written: December 2005

This paper reviews a broad range of micro-, macroeconomic and development economics literature on the impact of gender equality on economic development and growth. Stylized facts are reported as well as the results of both empirical and theoretical research. Globally, women's roles are found to be in the midst of change. These changes may stem from technological improvement, as industrialization has made extensive home-based production obsolete and reduced the demand for children. Instead of the gendered specialization in autarkic households, contemporary specialization in the market place may have led to lower fertility and consequent shifts in women's economic roles. As historic hierarchical gender valuations appear in many different guises, adjustment to these changes pose challenges on many different levels. Overall the literature suggests that issues in gender inequality as it relates economic development fall into the categories of: values and religion, cultural restrictions and roles, legal and inheritance laws and practices, resource allocation within marriage, labor market access, education, fertility, gender specific market failures in finance, and power in decision making.

Keywords: Gender equality, development, women, segregation, discrimination, specialization, stylized facts

JEL Classification: O10, J16, J71, D63

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Anne Mikkola (Contact Author)

University of helsinki and hecer - department of economics ( email ).

FIN-00014 Helsinki Finland

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Globally, progress has been made in the fight against both poverty and gender inequality, including through the expansion of social protection programmes. Yet significant gaps remain. Many women and girls remain in poverty and often face different structural constraints and risks across their life course, related to their biological sex as well as entrenched gender norms that discriminate against them in many aspects of their lives. As poverty, risks and vulnerabilities – which social protection aims to minimize, reduce or tackle – are gendered, if the root causes of gender inequality are not investigated in evidence generation and addressed in policy and practice, poverty will not be sustainably eradicated, nor gender equality achieved.

This paper provides an overview of the latest evidence on the effects of social protection on gender equality. It starts by considering how risks and vulnerabilities are gendered, and the implications of their gendered nature for boys’ and girls’, and men’s and women’s well-being throughout the life course. It then reviews and discusses the evidence on the design features of four types of social protection programmes – non-contributory programmes, contributory programmes, labour market programmes, and social care services – and their effects on gender equality, unpacking which design features matter the most to achieve gender equality. Finally, the paper concludes with implications for a future research agenda on gender and social protection.

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Linking gender differences with gender equality: a systematic-narrative literature review of basic skills and personality.

• Department of Social Research, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

There is controversy regarding whether gender differences are smaller or larger in societies that promote gender equality highlighting the need for an integrated analysis. This review examines literature correlating, on a national level, gender differences in basic skills—mathematics, science (including attitudes and anxiety), and reading—as well as personality, to gender equality indicators. The aim is to assess the cross-national pattern of these differences when linked to measures of gender equality and explore new explanatory variables that can shed light on this linkage. The review was based on quantitative research relating country-level measures of gender differences to gender equality composite indices and specific indicators. The findings show that the mathematics gender gap from the PISA and TIMMS assessments, is not linked to composite indices and specific indicators, but gender differences are larger in gender-equal countries for reading, mathematics attitudes, and personality (Big Five, HEXACO, Basic Human Values, and Vocational Interests). Research on science and overall scores (mathematics, science, and reading considered together) is inconclusive. It is proposed that the paradox in reading results from the interrelation between basic skills and the attempt to increase girls’ mathematics abilities both acting simultaneously while the paradox in mathematics attitudes might be explained by girls being less exposed to mathematics than boys. On the other hand, a more nuanced understanding of the gender equality paradox in personality is advanced, in which a gene–environment-cultural interplay accounts for the phenomenon. Challenges for future cross-national research are discussed.

1. Introduction

Despite Western countries having considerably advanced in gender equality, gender horizontal segregation remains among the main drivers of economic gender inequality ( Cech, 2013 ). Women have entered the labor market at increasingly high rates since the 70s, nevertheless, they often still work in specific sectors with substantial effects on their income ( Cortes and Pan, 2018 ). Gender segregation is already visible at the educational level where girls are overrepresented in disciplines such as Social Sciences and Humanities; these subjects are characterized by lower labor market prospects and income ( van de Werfhorst, 2017 ). On the other hand, boys prefer STEM fields which offer high-salaried and more status-related careers ( Barone and Assirelli, 2020 ). To explain the phenomenon, scholars in sociology and psychology have been particularly interested in basic skills and personality gender variances due to their influence on gendered career choices and outcomes ( Rosenbloom et al., 2008 ; Dekhtyar et al., 2018 ; Stoet and Geary, 2018 ).

Regardless of doubts about their magnitude ( Hyde, 2005 ; Archer, 2019 ; Hirnstein et al., 2022 ), gender differences in basic skills and personality are well-established in the literature ( Halpern, 2000 ; Halpern et al., 2007 ; Geary, 2010 ; Weisberg et al., 2011 ). The gender gaps favoring boys in mathematics and science are close to zero on average but observable at the upper and lower tails of the distribution ( Halpern et al., 2007 ; Wai et al., 2018 ). Conversely, differences in reading skills (women > men) are more pronounced and already noticeable when comparing men’s and women’s statistical means ( Halpern, 2000 ; Moè et al., 2021 ). Regarding personality (Big Five, HEXACO, Basic Human Values, and Vocational Interests), gender variances, although small to medium, occur across models and share a similar pattern. On the one hand, women score higher in negative emotions and reciprocity as well as prefer to “work with people.” On the other hand, men have more realistic preferences and regard status-related values more ( Schwartz and Rubel, 2005 ; Schmitt et al., 2008 ; Su et al., 2009 ; Lee and Ashton, 2018 ). On a national level, however, the link between these gender differences and gender equality, measured using conventional indicators such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (GGI), remains unclear with scholars making contrasting predictions.

Numerous social-role theories of gender differences expect that the gaps between men and women will decrease as equality between them is achieved ( Eagly and Mitchell, 2004 ; Else-Quest et al., 2010 ). These theories argue that cognitive and personality gender differences are derived from socially constructed gender identities based on erroneous essential beliefs (stereotypes) that men and women are intrinsically different ( Wood and Eagly, 2013 ). Gender stereotypes originate from the division of labor in ancient hunter-gatherer societies, in which greater strength allowed men to engage in more power-related activities, while women were tasked with nurturing duties because of their ability to breastfeed ( Eagly and Wood, 1999 ). Stereotypes would emerge early in life, with elementary school children already consistently engaging in gender essentialism, gender stereotyping, and implicit gender associations ( Meyer and Gelman, 2016 ). Parents, teachers, and friends are responsible for reinforcing them, rewarding children for behaving according to gendered expectations ( Gunderson et al., 2012 ), thereby making gender a “primary framing device for social relations” ( Ridgeway, 2006 ). As a result, boys and girls grow up into adults who have gender-specific roles in society and experience gender-conforming environments that shape their distinct skills and personalities ( Diekman and Schneider, 2010 ). The common assumption underlying these theories predicts that essentialist beliefs decrease in countries with higher gender equality. If this is true, empirical research will find smaller gender differences in more gender-equal nations.

Other studies have theorized an opposite trend, with men and women becoming increasingly dissimilar in gender-equal countries ( Charles and Bradley, 2009 ; Kaiser, 2019 ). Recently, Stoet and Geary (2018) labeled this phenomenon “the gender equality paradox.” Some have proposed that this paradox results from an emphasis on individualism and a societal system designed to accommodate women in what is perceived to be their gendered role ( Charles and Grusky, 2018 ). Others have applied an evolutionary approach and argued that in less unequal environments, men and women freely express their intrinsic differences as the privileged access to resources in “more prosperous and more egalitarian” societies favors the emergence of specific gender-evolved behaviors ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ).

Although the topic of gender difference has been widely discussed, whether men and women become progressively similar or different when greater equality between them has been achieved remains uncertain. This paper reviews several theories hypothesizing contrasting patterns, and then turns to the recent scientific debate on gender differences in basic skills from the PISA and TIMMS assessments, as well as personality (Big Five, HEXACO, Basic Human Values, and Vocational Interests) to consider how they relate to measures of gender equality on a national level. Several challenges for future cross-national research are also highlighted. Specifically, the present review indicates that the correlation between gender differences in mathematics and gender equality may derive from the lack of country-level effects in the models, while ecological stress (food consumption and historical levels of pathogen prevalence) may confound the results for personality. In addition, the paper examines explanations of the paradox in different domains and proposes a novel theory to explain the gender equality paradox in personality, where a “feedback-loop” effect (gene–environment-culture interplay) might account for the phenomenon.

The narrative approach was assessed to be the most suitable method for this study. Compared to more analytical methods, it allows for deeper insights into the ongoing debate ( Graham, 1995 ). However, issues may arise with this method due to bias in paper selection and interpretation ( Dijkers, 2009 ). To avoid these issues, the author implemented a systematic approach based on PRISMA guidelines together with the narrative method.

2.1. Eligibility criteria

To be eligible for inclusion, papers had to have been published between 2009 and 2022, and they had to describe quantitative cross-national research analyzing gender differences associated with measures of gender equality (composite indices or specific indicators) utilizing international data. The selected studies were divided into two groups—basic skills and personality—then further divided into multiple subgroups: mathematics, science (including attitudes and anxiety), reading, and overall scores for basic skills, as well as the Big Five, the HEXACO model, basic human values and vocational interests for personality factors. Since they had fewer available papers, the Big Five and HEXACO, as well as basic human values and vocational interests categories were combined.

2.2. Information sources

Published studies were selected from Scopus, Web of Science, Social Science Database, and Google Scholar. The final search was conducted on all databases in November 2022.

2.3. Search strategy

The research focused on gender differences in basic skills and personality due to their strong relationships with horizontal gender segregation. Thus, the main search words were “gender/sex differences in mathematics/reading/science,” “gender/sex differences in personality,” “gender/sex differences in basic human values” and “gender/sex differences in vocational interests.” The search was then refined using “gender equality/egalitarianism/inequality” as parameters.

2.4. Selection process

Only papers published in English were considered, and they were selected based on their titles, abstracts, and keywords. This study’s author was primarily responsible for the selection, although two other scholars supervised the process and ensured systematic application of the selection criteria.

Ninety-one papers were preselected; 35 were excluded after deeper screening because they did not match the selection criteria. An additional 25 studies were excluded because they studied gender differences outside the domains of interest. Consequently, 31 papers were included in the study.

3. Overview of gender differences in basic skills and personality and their possible relation to gender equality

3.1. gender differences.

On a national level, gender differences in basic skills and personality have been repeatedly described. Research has shown that boys slightly outperform girls in complex mathematical riddles ( Reilly et al., 2019 ); this difference has been associated with men’s overrepresentation in STEM fields ( Dekhtyar et al., 2018 ). Although the difference approaches zero, gaps are especially visible among the top and lower performers because of the higher variability in boys ( Lindberg et al., 2010 ; Wai et al., 2018 ). Stated otherwise, while there are barely any differences on average, the men’s distribution has a flatter curve, yielding higher values at both the lowest and highest ends. Similarly, men appear to have a small advantage over women in science, with differences particularly visible at the top end of the distribution; however, men are also overrepresented among the lowest performers ( Halpern, 2000 ).

Mathematics and science achievement is influenced not only by skills, but also by mathematics and science attitudes, test anxiety, and self-efficacy ( Ashcraft and Moore, 2009 ; Geary et al., 2019 ). These dimensions are believed to be strong determinants of STEM careers and contribute to the underrepresentation of women in these fields ( Moakler and Kim, 2014 ; Sax et al., 2015 ). Research has shown that men generally report more enjoyment and positive attitudes than women when engaging in mathematical activities ( Ganley and Vasilyeva, 2011 ; Devine et al., 2012 ).

By contrast, women perform substantially better than men on verbal tasks ( Moè et al., 2021 ), with girls using a broader vocabulary than boys on average by age two ( Halpern, 2000 ; van der Slik et al., 2015 ). Verbal abilities comprise various skills, and gender differences are most prominent in the reading dimension, where the girls’ advantage is three times wider than the boys’ advantage in mathematics ( Stoet and Geary, 2013 ). Nevertheless, Hirnstein et al. (2022) have cast some doubts on the magnitude of gender differences in verbal abilities claiming that publication bias might have influenced the results.

Cognitive abilities are largely interrelated. For example, high math skills predict higher reading scores and vice versa ( Bos et al., 2012 ; Reilly, 2012 ). Women’s mean overall scores considerably outperform men’s, even though the latter appears to be better positioned at the top and lower tails of the distribution, a finding that supports the higher men variability hypothesis ( Halpern et al., 2007 ; Bergold et al., 2017 ).

Turning to personality, gender differences are reported across the Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and the HEXACO model (honesty–humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness), suggesting small to moderate gaps depending on the test and dimension analyzed. Specifically, women score higher in both neuroticism and agreeableness ( Costa et al., 2001 ; Schmitt et al., 2008 ; Murphy et al., 2021 ), although findings have been inconclusive for openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, with some studies showing women and others showing a men’s advantage ( Goodwin and Gotlib, 2004 ; Shokri et al., 2007 ). The HEXACO model displays a similar pattern, with emotionality and honesty–humility both substantially higher in women than men ( Lee and Ashton, 2004 , 2018 ).

Men and women also differ in value priority and vocational interests. According to Schwartz’s theory ( Schwartz, 1999 ), values define the motivations behind behaviors that regulate attraction in diverse fields. Although the variations are small to medium, research has consistently shown gender gaps, with men scoring higher in power, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and self-direction and women scoring higher in universalism and benevolence ( Schwartz and Rubel, 2005 ). On the other hand, vocational interests ( Holland, 1997 ) describe how personality interacts with career environments and are important determinants of gender-typed career trajectories ( Kuhn and Wolter, 2022 ). Previous studies have shown that men prefer to be employed in realistic fields, while women favor working with people ( Lippa, 2010a ), suggesting that men have more realistic and investigative interests, preferring careers in engineering, science, and mathematics. By contrast, women prefer “working with people” as they have more artistic, social, and conventional tendencies, which facilitate social science careers ( Su et al., 2009 ).

3.2. Theories predicting that gender equality is linked with smaller gender differences

The social role theory ( Eagly and Wood, 1999 ) posits that variations between men and women derive from the interaction, reinforced by socio-psychological processes, between evolved gender differences in physicality and the socio-cultural context in which these differences are expressed. Eagly and Wood (2012) have argued that, historically, men’s greater strength, endurance, and speed allowed them to conduct physically challenging duties. Conversely, women developed the ability to breastfeed, making them better suited for nurturing tasks. These evolved physical predispositions for specific activities shaped the domestic division of labor between men and women in ancient hunter-gatherer societies ( Eagly and Wood, 2012 ).

As societies developed, the division of labor began to be influenced by physical gender differences in interaction with the social environment ( Eagly and Wood, 1999 ). In modern countries, the socioeconomic setting dictates the relevance of those activities for which men and women have evolved peculiar physical predispositions. In this context, division of labor no longer relates solely to the domestic sphere but also encompasses paid labor, with men and women being segregated into different occupations. This gender segregation “derives in part from male and female biology—that is, mainly their evolved physical attributes, especially women’s reproductive activities and men’s size and strength, which can allow some activities to be more efficiently performed by one sex or the other depending on the socioeconomic and ecological context” ( Wood and Eagly, 2013 ). Thus, the interaction of evolved physical gender differences with the social environment in which they are expressed is likely to be the main process shaping gender segregation.

Within societies, social-psychological processes reinforce gender segregation and make it appear “natural and sensible” ( Wood and Eagly, 2013 ). Most people, when observing differential behaviors, assume that men and women are intrinsically dissimilar and construct specific “multifaceted” gender roles that include either essentially masculine or essentially feminine features ( Beckwith, 2005 ; Wood and Eagly, 2012 ). Individuals then internalize these roles through societal mechanisms that reward people who comply and penalize those who deviate, leading both men and women to develop specific skills and personality ( Friedman and Downey, 2002 ; Eagly and Wood, 2012 ). Consequently, gender differences in basic skills and personality are derived from the great effort that societies have undertaken to perpetuate gender segregation and comply with constructed gender roles ( Wood and Eagly, 2013 ). It follows that in countries where gender roles are relaxed, gender segregation and, as a result, gender differences in basic skills and personality will be smaller ( Eagly and Mitchell, 2004 ).

The gender stratification hypothesis ( Baker and Jones, 1993 ) is consistent with the theory presented above. Although originally formulated to explain gender gaps in mathematics, it has also been applied in other spheres. The theory suggests that essentialist gender beliefs interact with individual goals, thereby generating gender differences. These differences emerge because men in patriarchal societies can connect their skills with career outcomes, whereas women cannot do so due to unequal opportunities ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ). In sum, societies that exhibit more gender stratification offer fewer opportunities for women to experience and develop the same skills and personalities as men.

Drawing from expectancy-value theory ( Wigfield, 1994 ) and cognitive social learning theory ( Bussey and Bandura, 1999 ), the gender stratification hypothesis argues that people undertake a task only if they value it and expect success. Perceptions of a task’s value are shaped by socio-cultural stereotypes about characteristics assumed to be gender-essential. Thus, women, due to gender stereotypes, would not find it valuable to invest in domains perceived as “masculine” because they would not expect to succeed in them. Instead, they would prefer to develop more “feminine” skills, and this predilection generates gender variances ( Frome and Eccles, 1998 ).

The above process is ostensibly reinforced by environmental processes that highlight those behaviors that are generally linked to gender in a given cultural setting. In this context, environment relates to the social influences that could be imposed, selected, or contracted according to “levels of personal agency,” that is, the extent to which people feel they are in charge of their decisions ( Bandura and Walters, 1977 ). According to this perspective, the immediate environment provides gender-essentialist information through parents, friends, and the media. Individuals regulate their behaviors according to the social expectations conveyed by this information and, through “direct tuition,” inform others about how different behaviors are linked to gender ( Bussey and Bandura, 1999 ).

According to the above theories, gender differences derive from false essentialist beliefs that diminish opportunities for subjective growth, making differences the result of unequal social treatment ( Figure 1 ). Gender essentialism is conceived as a “powerful ideological” force that legitimates gendered choices and limits personal development ( West and Zimmerman, 1987 ). Stated otherwise, gender not only represents the lens through which people see the world, but it also constitutes the basis for categorizing individuals ( Bussey and Bandura, 1999 ). However, as the above theories emphasize, any visible variation between men and women results not from innate biological differences but from social impositions. If men and women were treated alike, gender stereotypes would fade, exposing them to similar stimuli and, consequently, eliminating gender differences in both basic skills and personality ( Baker and Jones, 1993 ; Eagly and Wood, 1999 ). Thus, gender equality is likely to be associated with reduced gender variation. As Else-Quest et al. (2010) claimed, “where there is greater gender equity, gender similarities … will be evident.” Eagly et al. (2004) argued in the same vein, maintaining that “the demise of many sex differences with increasing gender equality is a prediction of social role theory.”

Figure 1 . Overview of social-role theories of gender differences. Gender differences are generated by essentialist beliefs that men and women are intrinsically different which are in turn influenced by social norms in tandem with the division of labor derived from gender physical specialization.

3.3. Theories predicting that gender equality is linked with wider gender differences

Drawing on gender essentialism, Charles and Bradley (2009) theorized an opposite effect—that gaps might increase with greater gender equality. They posited that, even if societies are gender equal, gender stereotypes endure because of the emphasis on individualism and self-expression in these societies. Specifically, gender equality stresses the expression of subjective preferences; however, it does not question how that preference emerges—an emergence that, Charles and Bradley (2009) ascribe to societal mechanisms influencing individuals based on their gender. These mechanisms strengthen essentialist beliefs about differences between men and women, in turn reinforcing gender-related roles ( Levanon and Grusky, 2018 ).

According to the foregoing analysis, societal systems are characterized by internal structural diversification that is conceptualized to accommodate individual “expressive choices” but functions, instead, to increase stereotypes as people act out their internalized gender identities rather than their subjective preferences ( Rawlings, 2007 ; Charles et al., 2014 ). In addition, long periods of care leave and advanced family policies, which are generally found in gender-equal countries, tend to influence horizontal gender segregation and compel women to enter into roles typically considered more gender-appropriate ( Freiberg, 2019 ), widening even further the prevailing gender gaps. Thus, even when a society becomes more gender equal, “a preponderance of gender-typical choices” and an increase in gender variances can be expected ( Charles and Bradley, 2009 ). Supporting this statement, some scholars have argued that gender stereotypes increase in more gender-equal nations ( Breda et al., 2020 ; Napp and Breda, 2022 ). Others have stated that “cultural individualism” is often the strongest predictor of gender gaps in equal societies ( Bleidorn et al., 2016 ; Kaiser, 2019 ).

Evolutionary theorists claim that differences between men and women are magnified in more gender-equal environments because privileged access to resources allows them to freely express specific gender “ambitions and desires” ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ; Stoet and Geary, 2018 ). These theorists argue that from an evolutionary perspective, the possibility that men and women evolved with identical characteristics is a “theoretical impossibility” and maintain that gender differences are derived, in part, from innate predispositions ( Vandermassen, 2011 ). Specifically, variations are expected to be visible in those domains in which the evolutionary pressure, mainly sexual selection, has influenced men and women differently ( Schmitt, 2015 ). According to this view, the interplay between “sex-linked” genes and environmental stressors is responsible for the more pronounced gender dimorphism in modern nations ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ).

In ancient hunter-gatherer societies, men and women evolved specific, intrinsic differences as a result of evolutionary adaptation ( Mealey, 2000 ). Nevertheless, environmental conditions suppressed these innate differences that have subsequently re-emerged in developed societies characterized by reduced ecological pressure stemming from favorable economic circumstances. Gender differences in sensitivity to environmental change have played a key role in explaining this re-emergence. Generally, in the animal kingdom, the larger animal between the two sexes shows sharper fluctuations in behavior when ecological settings vary. The same appears to be true among humans, where men are more influenced by environmental changes ( Teder and Tammaru, 2005 ). It follows that both men and women, but especially men, are less affected by environmental components in resource-rich countries, where they are free to follow their intrinsic characteristics ( Schmitt et al., 2017 ). Conversely, in countries that offer fewer economic opportunities, choices are constrained, and reduced gender differences might be evident ( Stoet and Geary, 2018 ).

Thus, according to the evolutionary hypothesis, increased gender variations in more gender-equal societies are mainly a product of the sexual selection that men and women have undergone during evolution together with gender differences in sensitivity to environmental changes ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ). This interplay of gender-linked genes and environmental influences is relevant for some gender variances, such as height, since men in more developed societies are reported to be more sensitive to environmental changes ( Sohn, 2015 ).

4. Basic skills and gender equality

Most studies on gender differences in basic skills have focused on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). TIMMS targets fourth- and eighth-grade students worldwide and reports their academic achievements every 4 years. Similarly, PISA is a triennial test of mathematics and science administered to 15-year-old adolescents in several countries. The PISA and TIMMS tests have been related to only a few gender equality indices; the most commonly used are the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index (GGI) and the United Nations’ Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Both indicators are based on sub-indices that assess gender equality in numerous domains, such as educational attainment, political empowerment, and health.

4.1. Mathematics

As Table 1 shows, the math gender gap does not usually relate to gender equality when analyzing TIMMS data; in the PISA data, however, the findings appear to be more divergent.

Table 1 . Correlations between mathematics gender differences (men > women) and both composite indices and specific indicators of gender equality.

Else-Quest et al. (2010) found that higher gender equality leads to slightly smaller differences between men and women in mathematics, although with variation across indices ( r  = 0.09–0.14). Similarly, Hyde and Mertz (2009) showed that more equitable index scores result in more women being among the top performers; however, their analysis used a small country sample and excluded Scandinavian nations (more on this below). Moreover, Gevrek et al. (2018) argued that moving toward gender equality predicts a reduced gender gap in mathematics in the part that cannot be explained by “observable characteristics,” that is, explained by elements that can be controlled for in statistical analyses.

However, the results appear to depend on the years that were considered in the analysis. For example, Stoet and Geary (2013 , 2015) found that only the 2003 PISA assessment was consistent with theories hypothesizing that gender equality is linked with smaller gender differences. For other years, gender-equal practices were unrelated to a mathematics gap. Additionally, the results are sensitive to the inclusion of Scandinavian and gender-segregated, Muslim countries as well as gender-equal nations in which boys considerably underperform girls ( Fryer and Levitt, 2010 ; Kane and Mertz, 2012 ; Stoet and Geary, 2015 ). However, some have raised doubts about including Muslim countries in the sample ( Kane and Mertz, 2012 ). Other scholars have proposed that the positive findings derive from a spurious correlation between the GGI and country-specific unobserved variances ( Anghel et al., 2019 ). Finally, as reported in Table 1 , Gevrek et al. (2020) recently reversed their findings, strengthening the evidence that gender equality, measured by composite indicators, is not linked to gender differences in mathematics achievement.

However, composite indices may fail to account for explicit factors influencing the mathematics gender gap while specific indicators may be more suitable for measuring how gender differences vary in relation to gender equality. As Table 1 shows, having more women in research, higher levels of female participation in economic activities, a higher ratio of women to men holding parliamentary seats, and greater educational equality seem to predict reduced gender variation ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; Penner and Cadwallader Olsker, 2012 ). More recently, Gevrek et al. (2020) extended their research by decomposing the mathematics gender gap into that which could be explained by “observable characteristics” and that which could not. Their finding suggests that the men-to-women ratio in tertiary education and the lower gender wage gap are not related to the explainable part of the gender gap, although they predicted a reduction in the unexplained part.

As mentioned earlier, also the findings for specific indicators depend on the year and countries considered. For instance, the results for the “women in research” indicator are unreliable because they sharply fluctuate across PISA assessments ( r  = −0.16, r  = −0.68; Reilly, 2012 ; Stoet and Geary, 2015 ). The relation is mainly driven by countries that are, on average, less gender-equal but display lower gender discrepancies, such as Latvia, Serbia, Tunisia, and Thailand, as well as non-OECD nations ( Reilly, 2012 ; Stoet and Geary, 2015 ).

Regarding “women’s economic activity,” Stoet and Geary (2015) analyzed four PISA assessments (2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009) and concluded that only the 2000 and 2003 results were consistent with theories predicting that gender equality is linked to smaller gender differences. In addition, “females in parliamentary seats” never reached statistical significance; only in the 2003 assessment did a link appear by excluding either non-OECD or Nordic countries from the sample ( Stoet and Geary, 2015 ). Further, while Penner and Cadwallader Olsker (2012) showed that countries with more women participation in the labor force tended to have higher mathematics gender differences, the gender gap was not linked to gender equality in their analysis, contrary to the predictions. In sum, only “women in research” demonstrated a significant negative relationship with the gender gap in mathematics, although the magnitude of this relationship is in doubt. Additionally, the gender equality paradox had no empirical support when analyzing mathematics abilities. Girls outperformed boys in diverse socio-cultural environments, such as Finland and Qatar, demonstrating that egalitarian attitudes do not explain gender discrepancies in this dimension ( Stoet and Geary, 2015 ). However, more gender equality had a positive effect on individuals, with both men and women increasing their mathematics scores in this context, without any specific advantages for either group ( Kane and Mertz, 2012 ).

4.2. Mathematics attitudes and anxiety

In line with the gender equality paradox, mathematics attitudes and anxiety gender gaps are higher in gender-equal countries ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; Stoet et al., 2016 ). Else-Quest et al. (2010) explained this phenomenon by arguing that mathematics anxiety is “a luxury, most often experienced by individuals who are not preoccupied with meeting more basic needs.” However, at the national level, both men and women tend to be less anxious about mathematics in equal societies, even though men benefit more from this lack of anxiety, enhancing gender differences as a consequence ( Stoet et al., 2016 ). Only Goldman and Penner (2016) showed contrary results to that of the above research, arguing that gender differences in mathematics attitudes remain stable, even in gender-equal countries. Recently, Marsh et al. (2021) proposed that the gender equality paradox in these dimensions is “illusory” as it vanishes when accounting for country-level academic achievements and socioeconomic status; however, further studies are needed to support their argument. According to the women’s political representation index, gender-equal nations also have wider self-efficacy and motivation gaps. By contrast, other specific indicators, such as “equality in wages” and “parity in secondary and tertiary education,” predict smaller gaps ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; Gevrek et al., 2020 ). Similarly, anxiety differences decline when there is equal political representation between men and women because women gain more than men in politically equal environments ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; Gevrek et al., 2020 ).

In conclusion, gender equality is negatively related to gender differences in mathematics attitudes when analyzing composite indices; however, specific indicators are either inversely or directly related. It appears that pursuing equal political representation counteracts the results achieved by parity in wages and education, putting the overall advantage into question. Moreover, although self-efficacy and motivational gender gaps increase as equality is achieved in political representation, parity in tertiary education and wages shows an opposite trend.

4.3. Science, reading, and overall scores

Table 2 shows the science gender gap’s mixed results for composite indicators. Analyzing the GGI, Reilly (2012) concluded that the gender gap in science achievement decreases as gender equality increases ( r  = 0.29); nevertheless, men are better represented among the top scorers. By contrast, Ireson (2017) failed to replicate any meaningful relationships. However, a recent meta-analysis reported that gender-equal societies are characterized by “a pattern of higher male achievement, while for nations with lower gender equality, we see a pattern of higher female achievement” ( Reilly et al., 2019 ).

Table 2 . Correlations between gender differences in science, reading, and overall scores (men–women) and both composite indices and specific indicators of gender equality.

As reported in Table 2 , also the specific indicators provide mixed results. No connection with the science gender gap is established for the “relative status of women,” whereas “women in research” is linked with increased gender differences ( r  = −0.39; Reilly, 2012 ).

These studies were based on inter-group comparisons, which may not have been appropriate for analyzing the relationship in question given the small mean gender gap in science. However, analyzing intra-individual strengths could move the debate forward because these are strongly related to career choices ( Wang and Degol, 2017 ). Studies have shown that men are more likely to have higher abilities in mathematics or science than in reading, generating a “math tilt,” whereas women generate a “verbal tilt,” with differences more visible at the distribution’s right tail ( Wai et al., 2018 ). In other words, although the mean gender variation in science approaches zero, an increasing number of men as compared to women have their top skill in science as opposed to reading, whereas the opposite trend holds true for women (see below). Analyzing 67 nations, Stoet and Geary (2018) pointed out that gender variances in science (and mathematics) intra-individual strength are higher in favor of boys in gender-equal nations. This trend among men could facilitate their preference for scientific careers because they would have the highest likelihood of success and especially so in gender-equal environments ( Dekhtyar et al., 2018 ).

Regarding attitudes, “almost everywhere” girls display a lower science self-concept than boys, even when their academic skills are equal to those of their male peers ( Sikora and Pokropek, 2012 ). Supporting the gender equality paradox, research has noted that gender differences in science self-efficacy, science enjoyment, and interest tend to be larger in gender-equal nations ( Stoet and Geary, 2018 ; Liou et al., 2022 ).

Table 2 shows that studies on reading differences, although few, have substantially converged, demonstrating an increased gender gap in favor of women when there is more equality between genders. Although no correlation is found for the GGI, gender equality results in higher women representation among top-performing students ( Reilly, 2012 ). Notably, the GGI has recently been linked to an increased reading gender gap in advanced societies ( Gevrek et al., 2020 ). Analyzing specific indicators, Reilly (2012) showed that “women in research” directly relates to gender differences in reading achievement, thus predicting progressively higher variations. Gevrek et al. (2020) reached similar conclusions, arguing that the reading gender gap is wider in favor of girls in countries where there is more gender equality in the labor market. Furthermore, studies on intra-individual strengths have also been consistent, showing that girls’ tilt in reading skills is larger than that of boys in gender-equal societies ( Stoet and Geary, 2018 ).

Few studies have focused on gender differences at the aggregate skills level, and those that exist have shown mixed results (see Table 2 ). Similar to the results for mathematics ability, Stoet and Geary (2015) found a significant increase in aggregate skill differences between boys and girls in nations with higher gender equality (GGI), although only in the 2003 PISA assessment. However, excluding either Iceland or Finland from the sample significantly weakened the link, and it disappeared when considering other years ( Stoet and Geary, 2015 ; Ireson, 2017 ). Recently, inspired by research on gender differences in gray and white matter, Stoet and Geary (2020) argued that the basic skills pattern should be considered as a whole to understand the full magnitude of gender variation. Assessing the overall pattern in mathematics, science, and reading performance, it appears that the gap is greater than previously measured, corresponding to a large statistical difference, and it widens in more gender-equal environments.

Some researchers have proposed that egalitarian values, have a “more pervasive influence” and might offer a better understanding of the topic ( Eriksson et al., 2020 ). An examination of these values suggests that “one standard deviation higher in gender equal values is on average 5.2 points more beneficial for boys” ( Eriksson et al., 2020 ). This observation holds true for the GGI.

Contrary to theories predicting that gender equality is linked with smaller gender differences, “male/female enrollment in tertiary education” is inversely related to gender differences in overall achievement in countries with gender-neutral enrollment rates that also have more men among the top performers ( r  = 0.19; Bergold et al., 2017 ). Conversely, “women’s labor market participation,” “women’s share of research positions,” and “the ratio of women to men with at least a secondary education” have medium-size negative correlations (from r  = 0.33–0.42), which may account for 28.7% of the gender variation ( Bergold et al., 2017 ).

In sum, few studies have examined the link between gender equality and gender differences in science, reading, and overall scores, making it difficult to draw any firm conclusions. The findings for science and overall scores are contradictory, while for reading, there is substantial agreement about there being a gender equality paradox favoring women. Furthermore, due to their interrelatedness, a communal pattern between these skills emerges when examining intra-individual strengths. This pattern is characterized by increasingly wider science/mathematics and reading tilts for boys and girls, respectively. The tilt for girls shows that when girls have a science or mathematics score similar to boys, they tend to have better grades in reading, a trend that is especially observed in gender-equal nations ( Stoet and Geary, 2018 ). However, scholars have only recently begun to consider intra-individual strengths, which represent a great opportunity for future studies on gender segregation.

5. Personality and gender equality

5.1. the big five and the hexaco model.

Evidence supporting a paradox emerged as early as 2001 when Costa et al. (2001) concluded that men’s and women’s personalities differ more in gender-equal countries. Schmitt et al. (2008) replicated these findings across 55 nations, again suggesting a positive correlation between gender differences and gender equality. More recently, larger gender differences in agreeableness favoring women have been found in gender-equal nations (see Table 3 ), mainly because of lower agreeableness in men in these nations with gender being the strongest predictor of individual levels ( Lippa, 2010b ). Conversely, the gender gap in neuroticism (women > men) has not been found to be affected by gender equality, even though the UN’s gender development and empowerment index predicts a decrease in negative emotions in both men and women ( Lippa, 2010b ).

Table 3 . Correlations between gender differences in personality (men–women) and composite indices of gender equality.

While these findings are illuminating, looking only at single dimensions may lead to counterintuitive results because personality is multifaceted ( Vianello et al., 2013 ). Although the average gender gap for a given personality trait is small, the overall variance is conventionally regarded as large, implying a significant difference between men and women ( Del Giudice, 2009 ). Based on the latter premise, Mac Giolla and Kajonius (2019) noted a strong relationship between gender personality differences and gender equality, with overall differences being broader in “gender-friendly” countries ( r  = 0.69). Other studies have supported these results, observing the same widening pattern ( Kaiser, 2019 ). Similarly, the emotionality gap from the HEXACO model displays a direct relationship with the GGI ( r  = 0.56), with women having an increasingly higher level than men in more gender-equal countries. However, honesty–humility fails to display any association with gender equality ( Lee and Ashton, 2020 ).

Further evidence for a gender equality paradox in personality emerges from the study by Falk and Hermle (2018) that, building upon the above personality models, related gender differences in economic preferences – positive reciprocity, patience, altruism, trust, risk-taking (higher in women), and negative reciprocity (higher in men) – to gender equality measures. They concluded that the differences are characterized by sharp increases in more gender-equal countries ( r  = 0.67).

5.2. Basic human values and vocational interests

Basic human values (see Table 3 ) of power, achievement and stimulation are generally considered more important for men, whereas benevolence and universalism are valued among women. Past research has found that these gender differences are broader when men and women are treated equally, even though both genders regard masculine values to be less significant ( Schwartz and Rubel-Lifschitz, 2009 ). More recently, Fors Connolly et al. (2020) extended the research on human values by adding a temporal dimension. Their analysis replicated the results cross-nationally, although temporal examination displayed a convergence between men and women in benevolence (over time, Cohen’s d −15%), with universalism and stimulation gaps remaining constant ( Fors Connolly et al., 2020 ). However, as the authors noted, this convergence resulted from factors not linked to gender equality, indicating that the correlation might be spurious and caused by confounding factors related to both gender equality and personality. This additional finding suggests that gender equality could not cause gender differences in values and that the gender equality paradox needs further exploration.

For vocational interests, few studies have examined how gender differences change with gender equality. Using the Brinkman Model of Interests, one study found that ‘gender differences in musical and persuasive interests decreased in countries with high gender egalitarianism; nevertheless, clerical and scientific interests were higher when gender egalitarianism was high’ ( Ott-Holland et al., 2013 ). However, most differences did not show any variance. More recently Tao et al. (2022) offered a more comprehensive overview highlighting that across all dimensions of vocational interest analyzed, increased gender equality was associated with wider gender differences. As Table 3 shows, gender personality differences generally increase in gender-equal countries. This finding is consistent across models and it appears to be valid also for dimensions not analyzed in this review (see Discussion for a more in-depth analysis).

6. Discussion

The systematic narrative literature review investigated recent studies on gender differences in basic skills and personality to determine whether cross-national relationships can be found with gender equality. The goal was to assess whether theories predicting that gender equality is linked with smaller gender differences have empirical support or whether a gender equality paradox has emerged in recent years. The general trend considers gender equality as either being connected to an increase in gender variations or having no relation with them, with a gender equality paradox occurring for gender gaps in some cognitive domains (attitudes toward mathematics, mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics anxiety, and reading) and personality.

6.1. Summary of the review

Based on the foregoing literature review, it can be seen that research supporting reduced gender differences in more gender-equal countries is scarce and inconsistent. A negative correlation is generally detected when analyzing gender differences in mathematics skills utilizing PISA data, although the correlation is influenced by either the year considered in the study or the sample country (see below). Moreover, “women in research” is the only specific indicator consistently negatively linked to the mathematics gender gap, albeit with disagreement about the strength of the association. Lastly, no connection between gender differences in mathematics and gender equality indicators is found when analyzing the TIMMS assessment. However, many studies have focused solely on mean differences in mathematics abilities, which are small or non-existent. Only Bergold et al. (2017) and Hyde and Mertz (2009) assessed the right tail of the distribution, where gender differences are more pronounced. This lack of studies on top performers highlights a gap in the research that needs to be filled. Also important is analyzing intra-individual strengths when studying the mathematics gender gap, as Stoet and Geary (2018) have emphasized.

Research supporting a positive link between gender variances and gender equality measures appears to be more robust and consistent. The literature on mathematics attitudes and anxiety shows that composite indicators predict a widening gender gap as equality between men and women advances. In addition, scholars agree that gender equality is connected with a larger advantage for women in reading and evidence further shows that gender personality differences are larger in more gender-equal nations. Men and women are less alike, especially in personality traits and basic human values, in countries that have invested the most in gender equality. Further support for a gender equality paradox in personality also emerges when examining other personality domains not included in this review. For example, wider gender gaps in self-esteem and narcissism (higher in men) exist in more gender-equal nations where women have more reproductive control, more executive positions, and their education is either similar to or higher than that of men ( Bleidorn et al., 2016 ; Jonason et al., 2020 ).

Specific indicators are either directly or inversely related to the mathematics gender gap, raising doubt about them being related to a general advantage ( Table 4 ). In addition, findings on science and overall scores are uncertain, even though both science anxiety and science intra-individual strengths follow a trend opposite to that anticipated by theories predicting a link between gender equality and smaller gender differences. Interestingly, other skills, such as episodic memory and visuospatial ability, show the same widening tendency, strengthening the case for a possible paradox in this area ( Lippa et al., 2010 ; Asperholm et al., 2019 ).

Table 4 . Summary of the papers included in the review.

6.2. Implications of the gender equality paradox

Understanding the possible reasons for the increase in gender differences in countries that promote gender equality is important and relevant since these countries may be leading men and women toward gendered trajectories, a path that is already observable in higher education. Charles and Bradley (2009) noted that the most advanced societies demonstrate more pronounced gender segregation in education. Stoet and Geary (2018) also observed that more gender-equal nations (measured by the GGI) have the widest gender gap among STEM graduates. Supporting these results, research has shown that gender differences using “interest in math careers” as a predictor of future major subjects are greater in countries with higher gender equality, with both men and women being, on average, less interested in mathematics than those in other countries ( Goldman and Penner, 2016 ; Charles, 2017 ; Breda et al., 2020 ). The same pattern is observed in the job market, where horizontal segregation is more pronounced in more gender-equal environments ( Blackburn and Jarman, 2006 ; Wong and Charles, 2020 ). Several investigations have documented this phenomenon and concluded that “Scandinavian countries are notable for their exceptionally high degrees of segregation” despite their advancement in gender equality ( Jarman et al., 2012 ). However, more recent findings have also detected desegregation patterns in more gender-equal nations ( Hustad et al., 2020 ).

6.3. The gender equality paradox: Possible explanations

The question of why gender differences are sometimes higher in more gender-equal countries remains. Some have proposed that the paradox in mathematics anxiety and attitudes might originate from the better economic conditions needed for these emotions to emerge. In countries where women are highly oppressed, these are more concerned about meeting more basic needs. Conversely, where economic, political, and educational circumstances are more favorable for women, anxiety toward mathematics activities is more likely to emerge ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ). However, at the national level, both men and women are less anxious about mathematics in developed, gender-equal countries, indicating that alternative explanations are needed ( Stoet et al., 2016 ). In fact, others have suggested that, in gender-equal nations, men and women set aside financial drives and follow more intrinsic career interests because of easier access to economic resources. Hence, women are less exposed than men to STEM activities, “giving them less opportunity to reduce their negative feelings about mathematics” ( Stoet et al., 2016 ).

With respect to reading abilities, the paradox might result from the interaction of two factors: the interrelation between basic skills and Western societies’ strong efforts to equalize boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance that has instead, paradoxically, increased reading skills in girls. Notably, where mathematics gender differences are reduced, the reduction is mainly due to an improvement in women’s reading ( Guiso et al., 2008 ). It follows that countries with smaller mathematics gender differences have the largest reading gaps ( Stoet and Geary, 2013 ). As mathematics is promoted in girls, their reading skills appear to benefit. However, because boys’ disadvantage in reading is, on average, less of a concern among policymakers, gender variations in this dimension have widened.

Some researchers have explained the gender equality paradox in personality by arguing that only differences in self-reported domains are increased ( Eagly and Wood, 2012 ). Here, the reference-group effect ( Heine et al., 2002 ) might conceal variances in less gender-equal countries, where men and women compare themselves with others of their own gender ( Guimond et al., 2007 ). If this explanation holds true, the gap in gender-equal nations would be a better estimate of personality differences between the genders because in these nations both women and men have a more accurate comparative term that includes the whole population rather than just a subset ( Schmitt et al., 2017 ).

Another explanation may be that personality is strongly culturally influenced. According to this view, individualism and self-expressive values act in tandem with gender stereotypes, promoting gender variance as individuals act out their “gendered self” ( Charles and Bradley, 2009 ; Breda et al., 2020 ). This explanation of the gender equality paradox corresponds to the findings in gender-equal nations that cultural mechanisms are at play accommodating women-typical roles, such as job flexibility and high parental care—roles that encourage women to embark on gendered paths and experience more communal traits ( Levanon and Grusky, 2018 ). Thus, it should not be surprising that, in gender-equal countries, men and women appear to differ more than in non-gender-equal countries and that this difference is expanding as women-typical roles are becoming more prevalent. Rather than expressing intrinsic gender differences, in these nations, there is a reinforcement of gender essentialist beliefs, which constitute an artifact of social expectations about how men and women should comply with gender stereotypes ( England, 2010 ).

While this argument is somewhat persuasive, research aiming at linking gender stereotypes with gender equality suffers from several theoretical and methodological limitations. Often scholars apply broad assumptions and rely on a limited, as well as unreliable, set of items to capture latent dimensions of implicit stereotypes hidden in survey data. For instance, in their recent article Napp and Breda (2022) used solely one item to grasp an alleged stereotype that girls lack talent by arguing that systematic gender difference in answering the question would highlight “the magnitude of the (internalized) stereotype associating talent with boys rather than girls.” In addition, several studies have argued that stereotypes about group features, when measured reliably, appear to be accurate ( Jussim et al., 2015 ; Moè et al., 2021 ). Löckenhoff et al. (2014) observed that perceived gender differences in personality substantially match those found in self- and observer-rated personality tests. The authors concluded that gender stereotypes constitute “valid social judgments about the size and direction of sex differences” that are more relevant than socialization processes and ascribed cultural gender roles ( Löckenhoff et al., 2014 ). This is not to say that culture plays no role in the emergence of gender differences, but that the social mechanisms amplifying gender variances—mechanisms that social-role theorists have identified—also capture intrinsic gender differences.

Evolutionary theorists propose a different explanation for the gender equality paradox. As they argue, some gender variations are sensitive to context-related fluctuations, demonstrating a gene–environment interplay. In societies in which conditions are favorable, gender-specific genes flourish due to a lower prevalence of diseases, lower ecological stressors, and lower starvation rates. Per this view, wider gender gaps in gender-equal nations most likely “reflect a more general biological trend toward greater dimorphism in resource-rich environments” ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ). If this explanation holds true, then heritability estimates will be higher in developed societies than in less-advanced cultures. Some evidence in this direction has recently emerged ( Selita and Kovas, 2019 ); however, the “WEIRD” gene problem—that nearly all twin studies have been conducted among Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies—represents an obstacle for generalizing results and making inferences about cross-cultural heritability differences ( Henrich et al., 2010 ).

6.4. A novel socio-cultural evolutionary account of the gender equality paradox in personality

The present review proposes that the evolutionary explanation for the gender equality paradox might be more complex than it appears due to the presence of socio-cultural elements in the evolutionary process. As previously noted, genetic effects depend on the environmental conditions (diseases and ecological stress) under which they occur, yet the environment is embedded into society. Thus, the gene–environment interplay is enclosed within a cultural context with specific social norms and, by itself, cannot encompass all involved elements ( Figure 2 ). Stated otherwise, the gene–environment interplay is a function of culture ( Uchiyama et al., 2022 ). Therefore, gender-specific genes can be expected to be emphasized in societies embracing cultural values that would favor the expression of these genes. Consider, for example, individualism and self-expression. It is unsurprising that these values are related to the gender equality paradox, as Charles and Bradley (2009) have highlighted. In resource-rich environments that also value individualism and self-expression, intrinsic gender differences are more likely to emerge. This thesis points toward interpretation of Kaiser (2019) , which states that both cultural individualism and pathogen levels confound the gender equality paradox in personality (see below). Also, Murphy et al. (2021) reached similar conclusions. A coherent, yet opposite, prediction might see gender differences as remaining stable or even decreasing in those resource-rich environments that culturally constrain self-expression. Accordingly, favorable cultural values would trump social mechanisms that amplify gender-based genes to emerge via a feedback-loop effect or “reciprocal causation” ( Dickens and Flynn, 2001 ) according to which social structures adjust to distinct gender traits and vice versa, thus increasing gender differences.

Figure 2 . Socio-cultural evolutionary explanation of the gender equality paradox. The gears show the interrelations between gender-specific genes, social structures, and environmental components mediated by cultural values.

6.5. Challenges for future cross-national research

While searching and analyzing the literature, this review also highlighted some challenges that researchers might face when conducting cross-national studies relating gender differences to gender equality measures. For mathematics ability, results could depend on outlier countries such as Scandinavian and gender-segregated, Muslim countries. In addition, the restricted country samples in international student assessments might be problematic. Despite the strong effort of PISA and TIMMS to be more inclusive, wealthy countries have traditionally been overrepresented, although the latest rounds have had very high coverage, including over 75 participating nations worldwide. Nevertheless, researchers, when assessing gender differences in mathematics abilities, should pay close attention to the countries included in their study because either the inclusion of outliers or a lack of heterogeneity might lead to biased estimations.

Another possible source of bias in research linking gender differences to gender equality on a cultural level is participant sample sizes, with some nations being overrepresented in comparison to others. How countries are clustered may also be problematic since countries are not independent data points and, “as such, they are like members of the same family or pupils of the same classroom” ( Kuppens and Pollet, 2015 ). Therefore, appropriate statistical methods, multilevel modeling, for example, should be utilized to account for both unbalanced sample sizes and data structure.

Correlations between mathematics gender differences and gender equality might originate from a lack of country-level effects in the models. Anghel et al. (2019) argued that when time-invariant country unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for, no association between the two variables is found. Moreover, the link between gender equality and the gender gap in mathematics attitudes might be confounded by country-level academic achievements and socioeconomic status ( Marsh et al., 2021 ).

Further, the gender equality paradox could be due to measurement error. Given that many international assessments and personality models have been developed in WEIRD countries, it is plausible that measurement error could be higher in non-WEIRD nations generating an illusory gender equality paradox. However, international assessments have been constructed to prevent such bias. For instance, PISA computes each student’s score based on a set of 5/10 plausible values designed to prevent measurement error and simplify secondary data analysis ( Marsh et al., 2021 ). Also, the gender equality paradox in personality appears to hold even after correcting for measurement error ( Kaiser, 2019 ; Fors Connolly et al., 2020 ; Tao et al., 2022 ). Nevertheless, when analyzing the link between gender differences in personality and gender equality, statistical procedures that control for measurement error should be applied (see for example Schmidt and Hunter, 2015 ).

Fors Connolly et al. (2020) highlighted the need for more temporal analyses of personality because an observed cross-national pattern may result from “a spurious relationship between gender equality and differences in personality” due to different country-level elements. Kaiser (2019) identified these elements as cultural individualism, food consumption, and historical pathogen prevalence levels. Other research has also agreed that cultural individualism could be a possible confounding factor as gender differences in personality are more pronounced in nations that highly regard individual self-expression ( Costa et al., 2001 ; Schmitt et al., 2008 ; Tao et al., 2022 ).

Some scholars have called attention to the misuse of composite indicators of gender equality, raising several concerns thereof and arguing that they might not be suitable for empirical research ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; Hyde, 2012 ). One concern is that these indicators, which encompass various domains from politics to economics, do not measure opportunities ( Richardson et al., 2020 ). Another concern is that they are not interchangeable since they are differentially constructed. Thus, comparisons between research relying on different measures of gender equality might not be suitable. Some of the disparate findings concerning math ability might be driven by computational differences in the indices included in the analysis. Nevertheless, the gender equality composite indicators most commonly utilized (GGI, GEI, and GEM) show very high correlation coefficients ( r  ≥ 0.84), while other indicators substantially relate to one another, suggesting that, although some differences occur, these indices are similar in their ability to capture the general dimension of gender equality ( Else-Quest et al., 2010 ; van Staveren, 2013 ; Stoet and Geary, 2015 ). Lastly, composite indicators may present a biased view of society due to the way gender equality is understood in the models. Often, disadvantages pertaining mostly to men are not taken into account when computing the indicators ( Benatar, 2012 ). As an example of this bias, the GGI from the World Economic Forum assumes perfect gender equality in areas where women have an advantage over men. Specifically, values higher than 1, which would assume a men’s disadvantage, in each sub-index are capped. Thus, a more simplified approach to measuring national gender inequality is preferred ( Stoet and Geary, 2019 ).

In addition, methodological issues also arise when using these indices. Some scholars have pointed out that correlations between gender gaps and the indices of gender equality could be driven by the strong economic component in these indices ( Fors Connolly et al., 2020 ). Therefore, it is important to control for appropriate economic indicators, such as GDP per capita and the Human Development Index, when linking gender differences with gender equality ( Kuppens and Pollet, 2015 ). Another difficulty may arise when contrasting results between composite indices and specific indicators occur. For mathematics attitudes, for instance, although composite indices suggest a gender equality paradox, specific indicators are either positively or negatively related to the gender gap. This may suggest that composite indices either capture an overall influence of gender equality or are unsuitable for evaluating gender differences. However, evaluation may lie outside the scope of models using these indices. Research linking gender differences with gender equality indicators has not tried to explain the paradox emerging from the analysis on the basis of gender equality per se ; instead, it has just highlighted a paradoxical pattern that would otherwise have remained concealed. Since no theory has been put forward that fully unravels the paradox, further studies are needed.

Theories considered in this review that predict that gender equality is linked with smaller gender differences do not offer a valid explanation of gender differences in basic skills and personality. In addition, for some dimensions, the gender equality paradox raises further questions about how gender variation emerges, which calls for a new approach. Based on these premises, this review explored both social-role and evolutionary hypotheses and suggested new insights that combine these views, while also highlighting explanatory variables that might cause bias in the results. Thus, specific research that more closely examines the explanations proposed is needed, especially studies with an interdisciplinary focus. Notably, Fors Connolly et al. (2020) highlighted the importance of cross-temporal analyses of the gender equality paradox because these may reveal a different path. Since country comparisons may be insufficient for fully grasping the evolution of the paradox, future research should include a thorough cross-temporal examination for a more comprehensive understanding.

Lastly, the gender equality paradox is an emerging phenomenon that has gained substantial scientific support across subjects ( Falk and Hermle, 2018 ; Campbell et al., 2021 ; Block et al., 2022 ; Vishkin, 2022 ). It requires attention from both the scientific community and the public because attempting to close gender gaps following traditional social-role theories and applying conventional methods, might end up exacerbating gender variations. In addition, the general pattern of increased gender differences in more gender-equal countries might inform that achieving equal opportunities does not go hand in hand with a reduction of gender gaps. Thus, policymakers should consider this trend when justifying interventions attempting to achieve equality of outcome between men and women.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

The work was supported by the Finnish National Board for Education through a working grant.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: gender equality paradox, gender equality, gender differences, basic skills, personality

Citation: Balducci M (2023) Linking gender differences with gender equality: A systematic-narrative literature review of basic skills and personality. Front. Psychol . 14:1105234. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1105234

Received: 22 November 2022; Accepted: 27 January 2023; Published: 16 February 2023.

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*Correspondence: Marco Balducci, ✉ [email protected]

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A systematic review of peer-reviewed gender literature in sustainability science

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• Published: 15 June 2024

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• Elisabeth Frank 1 ,
• Rike Mühlhaus 2 ,
• Katinka Malena Mustelin 3 ,
• Esther Lara Trilken 4 ,
• Noemi Katalin Kreuz 5 ,
• Linda Catharine Bowes 6 ,
• Lina Marie Backer 7 &
• Henrik von Wehrden 8  

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We conducted a systematic review of the available peer-reviewed literature that specifically focuses on the combination of sustainability and gender. We analyzed the existing peer-reviewed research regarding the extent to which gender plays a role in the empirical literature, how this is methodologically collected and what understanding of gender is applied in those articles. Our aim is to provide an overview of the current most common fields of research and thus show in which areas gender is already being included in the sustainability sciences and to what extent and in which areas this inclusion has not yet taken place or has only taken place to a limited extent. We identified 1054 papers that matched our criteria and conducted research on at least one sustainable development goal and gender research. Within these papers (i), the overall number of countries where lead authors were located was very high (91 countries). While the majority of lead authors were located in the Global North, less than a third of the articles were led by authors located in the Global South. Furthermore, gender is often just used as a category of empirical analysis rather than a research focus. We were able to identify (ii) a lack in coherent framing of relevant terms. Often no definition of sustainability was given, and only the sustainability goals (SDGs or MDGs) were used as a framework to refer to sustainability. Both gender and sustainability were often used as key words without being specifically addressed. Concerning the knowledge types of sustainability, our expectation that system knowledge dominates the literature was confirmed. While a problem orientation dominates much of the discourse, only a few papers focus on normative or transformative knowledge. (iii) Furthermore, the investigated literature was mainly contributing to few SDGs, with SDG 5 ‘Gender Equality’ accounting for 83% of all contributions, followed by SDG 8 ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ (21%), SDG 3 ‘Good Health and Well-being’ (15%) and SDG 4 ‘Quality Education’ (12%). We were additionally able to identify seven research clusters in the landscape of gender in sustainability science. (iv) A broad range of diverse methods was utilized that allow us to approximate different forms of knowledge. Yet within different research clusters, the spectrum of methodologies is rather homogeneous. (v) Overall, in most papers gender is conceptualized in binary terms. In most cases, the research is explicitly about women, running the risk that gender research in sustainability sciences grows into a synonym for women's studies.

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Introduction

The progression of climate change and further environmental degradation have direct ecological and social consequences that affect and will affect people differently according to different structures of social inequality (Kaijser and Kronsell 2014 ; Johnson et al. 2022 ; Thompson-Hall et al. 2016 ). This insight is important insofar as it sheds light on the fact that environmental problems and climate change will not have the same effects globally, but are context specific and related to power and domination structures (see contextualized vulnerability O’Brien et al. 2007 ) and must therefore be analyzed accordingly (Hackfort 2015 ; Johnson et al. 2022 ). However, sustainability science is not only dedicated to analyzing the problems that we will face as a result of ecological exploitation in ecological, social and economic terms, but also attempts to develop solution-oriented strategies and provide policy advice (von Wehrden et al. 2017 ). Therefore, it is equally important to reflect this power and domination-critical perspective in the search for solution options and to include different stakeholders (Malin and Ryder 2018 ). One specific issue that should be analyzed in connection with sustainability science problems and solution development is gender. As many studies have already shown, the effects of climate change and other problems resulting from the exploitation of natural resources have a gender-specific (Dankelman 2010 ; Denton 2002 ; MacGregor 2010 ) or intersectional impact (Kaijser and Kronsell 2014 ; Johnson et al. 2022 ; Thompson-Hall et al. 2016 ). Even though the unequal impacts of, e.g., climate change in terms of gender have been researched empirically in many areas such as agriculture (Agarwal 1998 ; Alston and Whittenbury 2013 ; Glazebrook et al. 2020 ), migration (Chindarkar 2012 ; Lama et al. 2021 ) and natural disasters (Enarson and Chakrabarty 2009 ; Neumayer and Plümper 2007 ), to date there has been no systematic recording of the research field of gender in the sustainability sciences. Our focus in this review is to give a broad overview of the current state of art regarding the topic of gender in sustainability science. We analyze the existing research regarding the extent to which gender plays a role in the empirical literature, how this is methodologically collected and what understanding of gender is applied in those articles. Our aim is to provide an overview of the currently most common fields of research and thus show in which areas gender is already being included in the sustainability sciences and to what extent and in which areas this inclusion has not yet taken place or has only taken place to a limited extent. Before describing our research focus in more detail, we first define our two main concepts, namely sustainability and gender.

We refer to sustainability based on the widely quoted definition by the Brundtland report from 1987 as meeting present needs without compromising the ability to compromise the needs of future generations (Brundtland 1987 ). Furthermore, our sustainability understanding includes an integrational perspective, also referred to as nested circles model, meaning that sustainability builds on economic, social and ecological dimensions that are interdependent and interconnected (Lozano 2008 ; Odrowaz-Coates 2021 ). In this framework in opposition to others, the economic and social pillars are not independent from the environmental dimension, but instead depend on it (Mebratu 1998 ).

Sustainability science addresses the challenges that threaten the long-term security of societal development conditions by distinguishing three levels that need to be researched: the systemic level to create system knowledge, the normative level to map out target knowledge and the operative level that aims to develop transformative knowledge (Brandt et al. 2013 ; Grunwald 2007 ; Michelsen and Adomßent 2014 ). System knowledge aims at describing and understanding a given social and/or ecological system via descriptive analysis. This often is disciplinary empirical research to analyze the dynamics, root causes and underlying mechanisms of the identified problem or system. System knowledge tries to reflect the current state of a system and its ability to change (Brandt et al. 2013 ; Grunwald 2007 ; von Wehrden et al. 2017 ; Wiek and Lang 2016 ). After identifying a problem and being able to describe it, target or normative knowledge is important to indicate the perception and direction of change. By asking what a desirable future situation could look like, target knowledge provides an orientation and an aim toward the development of solution options. This knowledge is normative since it asks which values are important when developing solutions to the identified problem (Grunwald 2007 ; von Wehrden et al. 2017 ). To then be able to address real-world place-based problems, transformative or action-oriented knowledge is necessary. By developing evidence-supported solutions, transformative knowledge offers possible transition paths from the current to the desirable situation (Grunwald 2007 ; von Wehrden et al. 2017 ; Wiek and Lang 2016 ). This action-oriented knowledge which aims at solving and mitigating the identified context-specific problem represents the main gap to this day (von Wehrden et al. 2017 ). While there are diverse and multi-faceted approaches in sustainability science (Clark and Harley 2019 ), we use the sustainable development goals as a lens of analysis. We agree that the conceptual foundation of sustainability is very diverse, and have mentioned the root literature above. However, the sustainable development goals can be seen as a main policy basis that currently attempts to shift the world toward a more sustainable development. While we agree that many conceptual foundations exist to this end, we focus on the SDGs since these contain a diversity of topical focuses, including gender.

Within the domain of sustainability, this review focuses on the diverse scientific literature published under the term of ‘gender’. We refer to gender as a historical construct consisting of attributes, norms, roles, opportunities, responsibilities and expectations that are socially, culturally and institutionally embedded and produce certain gender identities and social constructs (Arevalo 2020 ; Lieu et al. 2020 ; Mechlenborg and Gram-Hanssen 2020 ). Consequently, gender is not ‘given’ but learned and therefore dynamic and changing across a diverse and fluid spectrum (Curth and Evans 2011 ; Moyo and Dhliwayo 2019 ). Furthermore, we acknowledge the ‘intersectional’ nature of gender, i.e., the idea that one’s gendered experience of life overlaps and interacts with other axes of identity and systems of oppression (Richardson 2015 ).

Gender and environment

Now that we have defined the two core concepts of this article, sustainability and gender, we proceed to briefly summarize the state of research on gender in environmental and sustainability sciences. Before sustainability was declared a central part of international development in the 1990s and gender issues were incorporated in those development frameworks from the early 2000s, activists and researchers drew attention to the links between environmental degradation and gender inequality as early as the 1970s, with a particular focus on the disadvantages faced by women (Levy 1992 ; Mehta 2016 ). This early field of research called ecofeminism postulated an intrinsic relationship between women and nature based on their shared reproductive capacity (Majumdar 2019 ). Ecofeminism unites many currents and movements. Some of these take up an essentialist and biologistic understanding of gender, e.g., Shiva ( 1988 ), Mies and Shiva ( 1995 ), Agarwal ( 1992 ), Hackfort ( 2015 ). Women are understood as caring and nurturing by nature and at the same time suppressed by patriarchy as always being inferior and dominated by men (Agarwal 1992 ). Ecofeminists identified that the exploitation of women as well as of nature occurs in similar patterns, which is why it was assumed that "all women would have the same kind of sympathies and understandings of environmental change as a consequence of their close connection to nature [as well as their shared experience in exploitation]" (Majumdar 2019 , p. 72). Politically, these arguments and claims were taken up by the Women in Development (WID) approach which was adopted by many development agencies and NGOs in the 1970s. They argued that because of women's unique relationship with the environment as well as their particular affection by the effects of environmental degradation, women should receive special attention in global economic development (Levy 1992 ; Mehta 2016 ; Sasser 2018 ). Over the years, the arguments and theories of the essentialist view of ecofeminism outlined above have been widely criticized (e.g., Agarwal 1992 ). Many feminist researchers have pointed out that concepts of nature and gender are socially and historically constructed and not biologically determined (Agarwal 1992 ; Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Levy 1992 ). Furthermore, the depiction of women as a unitary was declared insufficient, as gender must be considered and analyzed in combination with other forms of oppression such as race, class, caste and so on (Agarwal 1992 ; Häusler 1997 ; Levy 1992 ).

What is disputed, however, is not that the oppressive relationship between gender and nature exists, but how it is justified and how it should be responded to Gottschlich et al. ( 2022 ). One of the most recited critiques stems from the Indian economist Bina Agarwal ( 1992 ), who, instead of an essentialist derived connection between nature and gender, adopts a materialist perspective to describe the link between Indian women and the environment (Agarwal 1992 ; Gottschlich et al. 2022 ). Agarwal points out that a gendered and class-based organization of production, reproduction and distribution results in differential access to natural resources and ecological processes (Agarwal 1992 ). For example, women’s responsibility for certain natural resources is based on the gendered division of labor as well as class-specific ownership and property relations. This ascription can also be seen as dependence of women on these natural resources to make a living, which often entails a greater sensitivity to the respective ecological processes (Agarwal 1992 ; Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Sasser 2018 ). Agarwal terms this research perspective ‘feminist environmentalism’ (Agarwal 1992 ). As a further development of feminist environmentalism, feminist political ecology (FPE) emerged in the 1990s, which takes a more holistic, intersectional perspective regarding gender on the connections between gender and nature (see for example Rocheleau et al. 1996 ; Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Sasser 2018 ). FPE focuses explicitly on gender-specific power relations, which are considered in their historical, political and economic contexts, as well as across a range of scales (Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Mehta 2016 ). Possible research foci include, for example, gender-specific access to natural resources and an intersectional and decolonial approach to environmental degradation and ecological change, as well as ecological conservation and sustainable development (Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Mehta 2016 ; Sasser 2018 ). FPE questions the so far dominating victimizing narratives and stereotypes of women often from the Global South and emphasize instead their agency in, for example, highlighting their resistance practices and activism (MacGregor 2020 ). As research from feminist environmentalism and feminist political ecology has broadened the perspective on the connections between gender and the environment, new approaches have also been sought at the international political level. The focus and programs now shifted toward gender and development (GAD) which addresses all genders. GAD approaches also acknowledge socially constructed gender roles as the cause for gender inequality and aim at creating different forms of empowerment from a grassroots, bottom-up perspective that includes, for example, women as active participants in development from the beginning (Sasser 2018 ). The last concept which we want to highlight is queer ecology that was developed from the 2010s onward, e.g., Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson ( 2010 ). Queer ecology analyzes and critically reflects the dominant human–environment relationships in terms of the underlying heteronormative order of the gender binary. The queer perspective expands feminist political ecology by deconstructing the 'naturalness' of heterosexual desire and the associated heteronormative relations of reproduction and production. The queer theoretical perspective questions the heterosexual nuclear family as the basic economic unit of the household and instead expands the view of social re-production by focusing on queer care relationships (Bauhardt 2022 ; Hofmeister et al. 2012 ).

Gender and sustainability

Research integrating gender as well as insights and theories from gender studies into sustainability science is relatively new and as we will see is not yet an established cornerstone in this research field. Nevertheless, scholars so far have already presented some important aspects as to why and how gendered perspectives should be integrated into sustainability science. Both gender studies and sustainability science are inherently normative sciences. They aim both at system knowledge about existing inequalities and unsustainable structures and their causes, but at the same time also gaining transformational knowledge about how inequalities can be reduced and resolved to create a more just world (Hofmeister et al. 2012 ). Both research fields position themselves as inter- and transdisciplinary and furthermore conduct their research across different scales, spatial as well as temporal (Bürkner 2012 ; Jerneck et al. 2011 ; Martens 2006 ; Rodenberg 2009 ). Feminist analyses and the integration of gender into sustainability science can however help integrate social and historical contexts more comprehensively in the analysis of socio-ecological systems as well as contribute to the development of suitable policy instruments for reducing gender inequalities and expanding adaptive capacities by contributing a social science perspective (Hackfort 2015 ; Hofmeister et al. 2012 ; Littig 2002 ). Feminist scholarship especially enhances sustainability science research by including analysis of power relations. Research interests within sustainability science should uncover the prevalent power relations in nature–society relationships and deconstruct them at various levels (Hackfort 2015 ; Hofmeister et al. 2012 ). Furthermore, feminist analysis critiques the claims of objective, universal and (gender) neutral scientific research and instead emphasizes the generation of situated knowledge that adopts partial perspectives which cannot be understood in isolation from its context (Hofmeister et al. 2012 ).

While the concept of gender is already explored within some research areas of sustainability science literature (Eger et al. 2022 ; Khalikova et al. 2021 ; Meinzen-Dick et al. 2014 ), the current state of the art remains widely unclear (Gottschlich et al. 2022 ; Hackfort 2015 ).

Research interests

Thus, in this paper, we explore the heterogeneous research area of gender in sustainability science by means of a systematic literature review of the peer-reviewed literature to identify prevalent research foci, trends and gaps. We focus on five research interests outlined in the following.

Bibliometric indicators

Firstly, we create a bibliometric overview of the scientific literature on gender in sustainability, thereby giving an account of the geographic origins, contexts and affiliations of authors as well as geographic tendencies concerning both authorships and study locations. Moreover, we closely examine definitions and perceptions of gender within the given research. Here, we differentiate between two applications: (1) gender as a specific empirical category and (2) gender as the general research topic. We focus on analyzing whether articles use gender as one of several variables in their empirical research or focus on gender as a central research topic. Our aim here is to examine whether research to date has addressed gender in a rather superficial way or whether and in which cases deeper analyses of gender and sustainability are taking place.

Sustainability definitions

Our second research interest centers around specific definitions of sustainability, which we acknowledge to be diverse and often incoherent within the available literature. We examine which sustainability concepts are predominantly used in the reviewed articles as well as if and how sustainability is defined. By identifying the diverse understandings of sustainability within gender research, we explore the different ways that specific concepts of sustainability and gender are intertwined. In addition, we link these notions to the three knowledge types we described above, system, target and transformative knowledge. These different types of knowledge are all important when conducting transdisciplinary research as is done in sustainability science (Wiek and Lang 2016 ). They all fulfill important steps when approaching wicked problems such as climate change or gender equality and build the basis for a comprehensive understanding which is needed when dealing with multifaceted and complex problems (von Wehrden et al. 2017 ). Our research interest is to analyze what kind of knowledge there is already in regard to gender in sustainability science and to present a state of the art which knowledge types are prevalent and which need more attention in the future. To this end, we assume that systemic, descriptive knowledge (Brandt et al. 2013 ; CASS et al. 1997 ) is decreasing over time, yet still expect to find overall less papers creating target or transformative knowledge.

Sustainable development goals and gender equality

Thirdly, we focus our scope of research on articles linked to at least one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) (United Nations 2015 ). Building on and extending the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs provide an umbrella of sectors which the examined research articles can be attributed to and/or associate themselves with. The SDGs were agreed on by the United Nations as “a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centered set of universal and transformative Goals and targets” (United Nations 2015 ). Applying the lens of the SDGs allows us to narrow down the range of articles related to sustainability, while acknowledging they do not provide an ultimate, but a prominent framework. In view of the SDGs as forming an entity of interlinked targets which are aimed at fostering simultaneous, overarching developments (Toth et al. 2022 ), we want to find out whether the papers are equally distributed to the SDGs or whether a few SDGs are dominating the discourse. This approach makes it possible to compare the number of research articles on gender associated with individual goals as well as to highlight clusters of SDGs which are prevalently mentioned together. By deriving research areas which are represented in a smaller share, we identify possible future areas to focus on.

In the fourth research interest, we concentrate on the methods used in the reviewed articles. Research within gender studies and feminist research are dominated by qualitative methods. Many scholars investigate their research interests regarding gender and gender equality by applying qualitative methods which document the subjects’ experiences and perspectives in their own terms (Gaybor 2022 ; Harcourt and Argüello Calle 2022 ). We determine clusters of methods used and how these connect to the knowledge types of sustainability and also to the respective SDGs that each article targets. Based on that, we are able to specify certain research clusters which can be grouped according to their generated knowledge and applied methods as well as thematic focus. This gives us information about which methods dominate in which research fields, to what extent they differ and which methods have not been used much to date.

Definition and understanding of gender

Finally, we aim to draw conclusions on definitions and understandings of gender in sustainability science and how these have changed over time. There cannot be a general historical account of the understanding of gender as it must always be specific to societies, cultures and regions of the world. For instance, the Western academic understanding of gender has undergone certain fundamental changes in the past century (Haig 2004 ; Muehlenhard and Peterson 2011 ). In this paper, we focus on two changes, namely (i) the constructivist turn which conceptualizes gender as not biologically determined in a binary of man and woman, but instead socially constructed (Fenstermaker 2013 ; West and Zimmerman 1987 ) and (ii) the acknowledgment of the ‘intersectional’ nature of gender (Bürkner 2012 ), i.e., the idea that one’s gendered experience of life overlaps and interacts with other axes of identity and systems of oppression (Crenshaw 1989 ; Richardson 2015 ). We explore if these important developments in the understanding of gender are reflected in the temporal distribution of the reviewed literature. Moreover, we detect correlations between (non-)binary, (non-)intersectional understandings of gender and research clusters/fields of sustainability.

In this review, we attempt to systematize a complex and heterogeneous field of research, which is why we are aware that this aim entails the risk of uncovering inconsistencies, renewing them or even creating them. We do not claim that our research interests and choice of methods are the ‘correct’ ones to systematically assess the topic of gender in sustainability science, but rather to provide an overview of which topics and methods have dominated the field of research to date, how these can be located in light of sustainability science concepts such as knowledge types or the SDGs as well as how individual international contributions can be used constructively for the further development of the subject area.

The paper is organized as follows. In section two, we describe the methods used, followed by the presentation of our results in section three. In section four, we discuss these results and give an account of their methodological limitations. Finally, we conclude by reflecting upon the results of this review and postulate future research implications.

Our systematic literature review was based on a quantitative bibliometric content analysis of the available literature. We thus created a broad overview of the state of the literature, with a particular focus on the key interests named in the introduction.

We identified articles via the Scopus database (Elsevier B.V 2020 ). Scopus was chosen as it contains natural science as well as social science articles. Additionally, Scopus allows for the search and preview of abstracts, which was helpful for conducting the systematic review.

We applied a search string containing the two words ‘gender AND sustainab*’. The initial search resulted in 5993 papers for the period of 1991–2021. We restricted our search to this time period because hardly any literature was available before, and most journals have no online record before. We excluded books, conference papers and book chapters and limited the review to articles that were published in English.

Inductively we created the following criteria: the included articles must

be able to be assigned to at least one SDG and

have gender as a research focus, and not only as a category of analysis.

Since the review focuses on gender in sustainability science, we needed at least two criteria for the inclusion of the articles. For one, the paper should make a clear link to sustainability, since this term is often used as a buzzword and we tried to exclude any literature that mentioned the concept only vaguely or in passing, such as in the first part of the introduction of the latter parts of the discussion. Regarding the first exclusion criteria, we decided to use the SDGs as one possible framework that reflects our understanding of sustainability science topics, and that can be seen as the current policy baseline. For our analysis, this meant in practical terms that we checked whether the topic of an article could be assigned to at least one SDG and, if so, which one. The extent to which the article addresses the SDGs themselves did not play a role here.

The second criterion to include a paper in the full-text analysis refers to the realization of gender. When conducting a pre-test with a random sample of articles, we realized that many articles just used gender as one of many variables in their empirical research and that the focus of the research question lay upon something completely different, where gender was a mere building block or one of many variables. To be able to narrow down our sample, we decided to only include articles that focus on gender as a central research interest. Therefore, we always read the respective abstracts to be able to determine whether a thorough research focus on gender was given or not.

Based on these criteria, we excluded 4959 articles. The remaining 1054 papers were coded according to the following five questions:

Does the article create system knowledge, target knowledge and/or transformative knowledge? The definitions for the three individual types of knowledge were extracted and applied from various articles, as already detailed in the introduction (see: Brandt et al. 2013 ; Grunwald 2007 ; Michelsen and Adomßent 2014 ).

Which SDGs can be assigned to the article? Which sustainability concepts and definitions were named?

Which methods were used in the article? We inductively grouped the respective methods into categories.

Does the article conceptualize gender as binary, as non-binary and/or as social constructs?

Does the article consider gender as the only category of analysis? Were further social categories addressed as well or is there an intersectional approach? Other social categories were specified in such cases.

A team of seven coders worked on the literature review in an iterative process. We coded the papers separately as well as together and clarified possible pitfalls in the criteria to minimize ambiguities. The respective categories were then summarized in a table which was the basis of all statistical analysis of the content.

Furthermore, we are interested in investigating whether there are specific research clusters within the domain of gender in sustainability science. Our aim is to identify the dominant fields of research that deal with gender and sustainability and to characterize these in more detail on the basis of the above-mentioned research interests. To derive groups out of the reviewed papers, we used a linguistic approach that classifies all papers into groups based on their word abundance. Within this analysis, we compiled all words in a document containing all papers, and the respective x–y table was clustered into groups according to Ward ( 1963 ). To visualize the respective groups, we used a detrended correspondence analysis (Abson et al. 2014 ), which allows for a descriptive analysis of the linguistic patterns of the literature. The groups were illustrated by significant indicator words that we identified by an indicator species analysis. Based on this multivariate linguistic approach, we derived seven unbiased groups of the reviewed literature, which are solemnly based on the word abundance of the papers. All statistical analyses were conducted with the R Statistical Software (v4.2.2; R Core Team 2022 ).

We identified a total of 1054 papers, out of which almost half were published after 2017 (48%) (Fig.  1 ).

Total numbers of papers published per year

While some journals contain a relatively high proportion of papers (e.g., Sustainability 65 articles, Gender and Development 31 articles, World Development 21 articles, Gender, Place and Culture 14 articles, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 14 articles), there is no dominating journal, and articles are published in a total of 566 journals. Lead authors originate mainly from the USA (19.9%), UK (11.5%), Australia (5.8%), Canada (4.6%), India (4.5%), South Africa (4.4%), Spain (4.3%) and Germany (4.2%). Lead authors from Sweden, Netherlands, Nigeria, Italy, China, Austria, Indonesia, South Korea, Denmark, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland published more than 1%, but less than 4% of the papers. All other countries have less than 1% of the lead authors in proportion (see online appendix 1). These numbers must be interpreted particularly in the aspect that only English articles were included in the analysis.

The vast majority of the papers (844) are empirical, and 113 papers utilize gender as a category within the empirical analysis. Roughly, a third of all the articles analyze gender in combination with other social categories. The most researched intersection is between gender and class (also specified as income differences), followed by the intersection between gender and race. Concerning the utilization of the SDGs, 83% of all papers research on Gender Equality (SDG 5). Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) is included in 20% of all papers. Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3) and Quality Education (SDG 4) are mentioned by about 15% of all papers. All other SDGs are mentioned by less than 10% of the papers (Table 1 ).

The majority of concrete definitions regarding sustainability built on the SDGs (137); the Millennium Goals are mentioned by some 40 papers, the Brundtland report by 23, Agenda 21 by 16, while all other frameworks such as the Kyoto protocol (2), national strategies (2), Rio declaration (2), IPCC (1), the Three Pillar Framework (1), Corporate Sustainability (1) and Club of Rome (1) are mentioned less often. Concerning the knowledge types, system knowledge clearly dominates, with stronger ties to normative knowledge and slightly weaker ties to transformative knowledge. All three types of knowledge are only achieved by few (31) papers (Fig. 2 ).

Distribution of knowledge types

Concerning the use of scientific methods, the most abundantly applied methods are literature reviews (22.5%), closely followed by interviews (22%). Statistical approaches are used by 12,7% of the papers, closely followed by methods of participatory research (10.4%), case study approaches (10.6%) and surveys (9.8%). Other methods are less abundantly used, including ethnographic approaches (3.6%), discourse or content analysis (2.7%) or systematic literature review (2.7%) (Fig. 3 ).

Percentage of papers using certain scientific methods

The majority of papers consider a binary gender understanding. While there was an increase in the absolute total number of papers that considered a socially constructed gender understanding overall, the proportion of papers falling into this category did decrease.

In the following section, we introduce the different groups derived from multivariate analysis, and present key characteristics of the individual groups (Fig.  4 ).

Research clusters with number of relevant contributions and the five most significant words that statistically indicate the research clusters

Cluster 1: gender equality and institutions

The first cluster, which contains 207 papers, emerged first in 1991 and is thus the oldest cluster. The proportion of articles displays a diverse activity, having peaked in 2020. The research focuses on the institutional commitment toward gender equality (Hennebry et al. 2019 ; Kalpazidou Schmidt et al. 2020 ; Larasatie et al. 2020 ). The topical focus encompasses entrepreneurship (Kamberidou 2020 ; Kravets et al. 2020 ; Vershinina et al. 2020 ), especially concerning the empowerment of women in social enterprises (Allen et al. 2019 ; Benítez et al. 2020 ; Green 2019 ), yet also research regarding peace building (Adjei 2019 ; Kim 2020 ; Turner 2020 ), foreign policy (Agius and Mundkur 2020 ; Cohn and Duncanson 2020 ) and security (Curth and Evans 2011 ; Mahadevia and Lathia 2019 ; Rothermel 2020 ) is conducted. These focal points are reflected in the usage of the most mentioned SDGs, 8 (decent work), 10 (reduced inequalities), and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). About one-quarter of the articles channel sustainability through SDGs and MDGs or the Brundtland report as well as the Agenda 21. The research questions of nearly all articles aim at generating system knowledge, yet more than half of them also create normative knowledge. Besides gender, half of the papers include other social categories in their analysis, mostly focusing on class, race, sexuality and ethnicity. A binary gender framing is mainly used, yet one-quarter of the articles acknowledge gender to be a social construct. Most of the papers are qualitative case studies utilizing interviews or ethnographic approaches.

Cluster 2: gender in health and well-being

The second cluster, consisting of 165 papers, emerged in 2003 and is closely related to the first and the 6th cluster. The topical focus of this cluster is on health equity and the impacts of gender on health services (Manandhar et al. 2018 ; Scheer et al. 2016 ; Thresia 2018 ), for instance concerning the evaluation or assessment of health programs (Friedson-Ridenour et al. 2019 ; Williams et al. 2009 ). Next to barrier identification (Kennedy et al. 2020 ; Sawade 2014 ; Sciortino 2020 ) and empowerment strategy assessment (Maluka et al. 2020 ; Plouffe et al. 2020 ; Yount et al. 2020 ), system knowledge is created through qualitative assessment strategies such as methods of participatory research and interviews. A considerable number of papers discussed health equity also in terms of motherhood, especially maternal health and maternal mortality rates were covered often (Klugman et al. 2019 ; Morgan et al. 2017 ). One-quarter of the articles reference sustainability through SDGs and MDGs. About one-third of the articles also apply other social categories in their analysis, mostly adding the concept of class but also ethnicity, race and religion. While the papers in this cluster widely build on a binary gender framework, many concern gender inequalities, especially aiming at low- and middle-income countries and communities.

Cluster 3: gendered access to resources

Cluster number three, which contains 244 papers, started to emerge in 1995, with the majority of papers being published between 2017 and 2020. According to the word abundance analysis, this cluster partly overlaps with cluster number two and six. On the one hand, the papers in this cluster focus on the assessment of inequalities and gender-specific barriers. Specifically, they examine the structural discrimination as well as underrepresentation of women in certain areas (Crockett and Cooper 2016 ; Ennaji 2016 ; Lama et al. 2017 ; Woodroffe 2015 ). Two areas that are analyzed most often are the limited access to specific natural resources respective institutions such as water (Andajani-Sutjahjo et al. 2015 ; Pandya and Shukla 2018 ; Singh and Singh 2015 ), energy (Burney et al. 2017 ), education (Ansong et al. 2018 ) and healthcare (Rivillas et al. 2018 ; Theobald et al. 2017 ). Secondly, the limited and ineffective opportunities to participate in decision-making processes, for example, in politics (Dyer 2018 ; Lama et al. 2017 ; Sindhuja and Murugan 2018 ), agriculture (Azanaw and Tassew 2017 ) and at the workplace (Limuwa and Synnevåg 2018 ; Rohe et al. 2018 ). The identification of different challenges which women face in regard to participation and representation clash with the fact that the women in these cases often bear the responsibility for survival and sustainability of the respective community (Belahsen et al. 2017 ; Garutsa and Nekhwevha 2016 ; Limuwa and Synnevåg 2018 ; Rohe et al. 2018 ). Apart from this problem-oriented focus creating system knowledge, quite many articles in this cluster offer evidence-based recommendations and solution strategies on how to improve those inequalities by suggesting possible areas of intervention such as enforcing legislation, mentorship, quotas, financial inclusion, etc. (Ansong et al. 2018 ; Appiah 2015 ; Burney et al. 2017 ; Mello and Schmink 2017 ; Saviano et al. 2017 ). The authors emphasize that adaptation strategies and policy-making must be gender sensitive and critically reflect gender-specific circumstances, vulnerabilities and experiences (Garai 2016 ; Rakib et al. 2017 ; Rivillas et al. 2018 ; Shanthi et al. 2017 ; Theobald et al. 2017 ). Some papers channel sustainability through SDGs and MDGs or the Brundtland report as well as the Agenda 21. About 50 papers focus on class or caste, race, ethnicity and religion as categories apart from gender. A binary gender framing is mostly used, and studies are predominantly qualitative case studies utilizing interviews, surveys or methods of participatory research.

Cluster 4: gender inequality in public infrastructure

Cluster four contains 191 papers with first publications in 1997 and the majority of the papers being published between 2017 and 2020. The thematic focus of this cluster lies upon gender inequality in public infrastructure. The articles mainly apply a problem-oriented lens while addressing different areas of gender discrimination in which safe, affordable and sustainable access to certain institutions of public infrastructure is not given. Three areas are analyzed most often: gendered mobility investigates gender differences in travel patterns and modal split (Abasahl et al. 2018 ; Winslott Hiselius et al. 2019 ; Kawgan-Kagan 2020 ; Le et al. 2019 ; Mitra and Nash 2019 ; Polk 2003 ), gendered barriers in public transportation (Al-Rashid et al. 2020 ; Malik et al. 2020 ; Montoya-Robledo and Escovar-Álvarez 2020 ) as well as gender discrimination within transport planning and policy-making (Kronsell et al. 2016 , 2020 ; Wallhagen et al. 2018 ). The second area discusses gendered access to healthcare, mostly referring to services providing counseling and treatment for victims of gender-based violence (Betron et al. 2020 ; Minckas et al. 2020 ; Prego-Meleiro et al. 2020 ), sexual and reproductive health rights (Bosmans et al. 2008 ; Lince-Deroche et al. 2019 ; Loganathan et al. 2020 ) and HIV prevention as well as treatment (Gómez 2011 ; Ssewamala et al. 2019 ). The third area analyzes gendered access to education (Burridge et al. 2016 ; Islam and Siddiqui 2020 ). The majority of the papers create systemic knowledge. Notably, many papers are published in the journal ‘Sustainability’ and several articles contain ‘women’ in the papers’ title. A few articles reference sustainability by mentioning the SDGs and the Brundtland report. About 40 papers mention interlinkages with other types of social categories and do not solely focus on gender in their analysis. The gender framing is mostly binary. The methodology in this cluster utilizes most often literature reviews or case studies conducting interviews or surveys.

Cluster 5: gender inequalities in agricultural systems

This cluster consists of 102 papers, and dates back to 1995. Since 2017, its contribution is slowly increasing. The research within this cluster can be grouped into four aspects and widely generates system knowledge. The majority of the research focuses on gender roles and how these influence interactions with(in) local systems such as forestry (Benjamin et al. 2018 ; Nhem and Lee 2019 ; Stiem and Krause 2016 ), agriculture (Drafor et al. 2005 ; Ergas 2014 ; Fischer et al. 2017 ), fisheries (Tejeda and Townsend 2006 ; Szymkowiak and Rhodes-Reese 2020 ; Torell et al. 2019 ), water (Imburgia 2019 ; Singh 2006 , 2008 ) and the energy sector (Buechler et al. 2020 ; Stock 2021 ; Wiese 2020 ). One topical focus is about participation of women in decision-making and planning processes (Ihalainen et al. 2020 ; Mulema et al. 2019 ; Pena et al. 2020 ). Another focus aims at gender differences in climate adaptation and conservation strategies (Abdelali-Martini et al. 2008 ; Rao et al. 2020 ; Wekesah et al. 2019 ). Furthermore, many papers investigate challenges women face in (agricultural) resource control and management (Badstue et al. 2020 ; Pehou et al. 2020 ) as well as in the access to markets and the distribution of land (Holden and Tilahun 2020 ; Meinzen-Dick et al. 1997 ). Lastly, a considerable number of papers discuss gendered climate vulnerabilities and risk management (Friedman et al. 2019 ; Yadav and Lal 2018 ; Ylipaa et al. 2019 ). These research interests are also reflected in the mentioned SDGs, which are 15 (life on land), 8 (decent work), 2 (zero hunger) and 1 (no poverty). Only very few papers channel sustainability through SDGs and MDGs. About one-third of the articles also include other social categories in their research, mostly adding the concept of class but also religion, age, race and ethnicity. Regarding the understanding of gender about 10% perceive gender to be a social and cultural construct and only one mentions a non-binary understanding of gender. The majority of the papers conduct qualitative case studies, often combined with interviews, surveys or methods of participatory research. Papers within this cluster mostly report about local projects conducted in low- and middle-income countries of the Global South.

Cluster 6: inclusion of gender equality in sustainable development

Cluster six contains 45 articles and emerged in 1992. The number of published papers within this cluster fluctuated widely over the years, yet since 2019 the proportional contribution is slowly increasing. In contrast to the other clusters, the papers in this group are not centered around a certain topic, but rather focus on a general discussion regarding the inclusion of gender issues in research on sustainable development, yet here scholars mainly apply problem-oriented empirical research on gender inequalities, discrimination and biases often on a national scale. Those gender inequalities are often referred to as gender gap and focus mostly on political representation (Azmi 2020 ; Kreile 2005 ; Purwanti et al. 2018 ; von Dach 2002 ), access to education (Assoumou-ella 2019 ; Cortina 2010 ; Cheng and Ghajarieh 2011 ; Suvarna et al. 2019 ) and participation in natural resource management (Sasaki and Chopin 2002 ; Valdivia and Gilles 2001 ; Yadav and Sharma 2017 ). These topical areas also overlap with the mentioned SDGs, 4 (quality education), 8 (decent work), 3 (good health and well-being) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Gender equality is thus highlighted as one of the most important tasks in sustainable development. A few articles reference sustainability by mentioning the SDGs and the Brundtland report. About 20% of the articles also add further social categories apart from gender when analyzing inequalities in sustainable development. Besides gender, most of these focus on race and class. While a mere half of the papers in this cluster are conceptual, the rest conduct mainly qualitative case studies utilizing interviews, surveys and methods of participatory research. Studies range across the global and the country or local level.

Cluster 7: gender diversity and corporate performance

The last cluster is a recently emerging research area with contributions starting from the year 2016 onward. The 44 contributions in this cluster focus on human resource characteristics, primarily the gender diversity of boards (Orazalin and Baydauletov 2020 ; Romano et al. 2020 ; Xie et al. 2020 ) and the sustainable performance of firms or other organizations (Burkhardt et al. 2020 ; Mungai et al. 2020 ; Ozordi et al. 2020 ). The cluster as such is very homogenous with many contributions sharing similarly phrased research questions and a local approach that is reflected in either the focus on organizations in a certain geographic region or of a specific economic sector. This is also reflected in the most often mentioned SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth). Nevertheless, two research angles can be differentiated within this cluster which both contribute to create system knowledge: one angle investigates the relationship between gender representation and indicators of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Tapver et al. 2020 ; Valls et al. 2020 ; Yarram and Adapa 2021 ), corporate environmental performance or specific sustainable policies (Birindelli et al. 2019 ; Elmagrhi et al. 2018 ; García Martín and Herrero 2020 ), while another more economic angle investigates the relationship between gender representation and the limitation of risks for ‘sustainable’ i.e., continuous growth (Gudjonsson et al. 2020 ; Loukil et al. 2019 ; Suciu et al. 2020 ). In their findings, most papers tend to highlight gender-(binary-)based differences in morality or ethics. There is no intersectional approach or other social categories in the articles, as well as nearly no sustainability references. The majority of the papers conducted quantitative research utilizing statistics.

In the introduction, we set out five research interests for this systematic literature review. Based on the research clusters, we revisit these focal points and embed our findings into the current debate.

(i) Regarding bibliometric data, while the overall number of countries with lead authors is very high with 91 countries, there is a tendency that the majority of lead authors are from the Global North, and less than a third of the articles are led by authors located in the Global South. This depicts an overall determined imbalance of publication origins as shown by Blicharska et al. ( 2017 ), Collyer ( 2018 ), Jeffery ( 2014 ), Karlsson et al. ( 2007 ) and Rokaya et al. ( 2017 ). Previous accounts found a domination of SDG-related publications from European regions (Sweileh 2020 ). Within our analysis, all of the countries from which most lead authors come are listed OECD countries and can thus be described as belonging widely to the Global North (Blicharska et al. 2017 ), underlining the data gap between the Global North and the Global South (Karlsson et al. 2007 ). A comparable imbalance was found regarding the countries most affected by climate change which are equally underrepresented in environmental science (Blicharska et al. 2017 ). This is even more pronounced since researchers from the Global North tend to hold higher posts within research teams, compared to those from the Global South (Jeffery 2014 ). Such power imbalances can, however, be tackled by a higher contextual transparency in the research conduct (Maina-Okori et al. 2018 ), and other SDG-aimed research reviews show a similar bias toward the European regions (Sweileh 2020 ), while for instance SDG 5 was least researched in the Western Pacific regions. Deeper contextual information is often omitted in research papers due to the demand in brevity; there are counterexamples that incorporate the author's background into the research context (Maina-Okori et al. 2018 ).

The proportion of papers that utilizes gender as a research focus was less than 10% and thus relatively low. Based on the word-driven analysis, we identify clear groups differentiated based on the topical focus, methodological approaches and theoretical foundation. The literature ranges from rather qualitative and discourse-oriented approaches to more survey and interview-driven literature. A second gradient in the literature ranges across different systems, for instance from agricultural systems to different organizations and their development.

(ii) Concerning our second research interest, we identify a lack in coherent framing of relevant terms. Often no definition of sustainability is given, and only the sustainability goals (SDGs or MDGs) are used as a framework to refer to sustainability. With other diverse sources such as the Brundtland report and the WCED 1987 as well as the Agenda 21 and the Rio Conference 1992 being cited to define the sustainability understanding of the respective paper, it is clear that a coherent and uniting framing of sustainability science is still lacking in this specific scientific literature. After all, these sources are quite old, and much has been published since (e.g., Clark 2007 , etc.). One article we want to highlight that situates itself both within sustainability science and includes a gendered perspective is by Ong et al. ( 2020 ). They classified their research on queer identities within tourism and leisure research as social sustainability, arguing that social sustainability advocates equal opportunities and human rights for both individual and social well-being (Ong et al. 2020 ). Another paper which we want to mention is that by Maina-Okori et al. ( 2018 ) because it argues from a perspective that was taken up very little by the analyzed articles. They call for the inclusion of Black feminist thought and Indigenous knowledge in sustainability science research as well as the reflection on colonial history, which is not given enough attention in research on climate protection, education for sustainable development or land use rights. Concerning the knowledge types of sustainability (systemic, normative and transformative), our expectation that system knowledge widely dominates the literature was confirmed, with a combination of systemic and normative as well as systemic and transformative knowledge being also abundantly published. We cautiously interpret this as a reflection of the research we investigated on partial knowledge, while an overarching integration of knowledge types is needed for many of the sustainability challenges we face, including the ones associated with gender. While a problem orientation dominates much of the discourse, only few papers focus on normative or transformative knowledge. In their paper on environmental justice in urban mobility decision-making, for instance, Chavez-Rodriguez et al. ( 2020 ) combined all three knowledge types. First, they dismantled how discourses and narratives on urban mobility are often socially exclusionary and reproduce patterns of marginalization (systemic knowledge). They then argued that environmental justice as an intersectional system must include mobility justice (normative knowledge). In the end, they proposed a framework definition of ‘queering the city’ which shall help to create a more emancipatory narrative on urban mobility (transformative knowledge) (Chavez-Rodriguez et al. 2020 ). However, the small proportion of papers doing this indicates a lack of an overarching perspective when it comes to the diverse knowledge types, which can be considered relevant to overcome the problems we face globally.

(iii) Concerning the third research interest, the investigated literature mainly contributed to few SDGs, with SDG 5 ‘Gender Equality’, SDG 8 ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’, SDG 3 ‘Good Health and Well-being’ and SDG 4 ‘Quality Education’ being in the main focus. All other SDGs were mentioned by less than 10% of the papers. This underlines that most scientific papers are rather focused than holistic when viewed through an SDG perspective. While no research can meaningfully engage with all SDGs, we would propose that a wider coverage of other SDGs to be engaging more in gender research would be beneficial.

Furthermore, SDGs are often mentioned as a boundary framework while missing the chance to deeply engage with the conceptual foundation or purpose of the SDG framework. Within the vast majority of papers, the SDGs are referred to as a means to the end of positioning the research within a current discourse. In other words, many papers do not work with the SDGs to contribute toward its strategies and solutions, but instead to simply be affiliated to the broad movement of sustainable development. This reference often takes place in the introduction or conclusion of the paper and is of no importance in the actual research. This gives the impression that the popularity of the SDGs, which goes beyond the discourse of sustainability science, is used to categorize or identify one's own research within the light of sustainability.

However, there are many constructive contributions toward a critical perspective on the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals. Ong et al. ( 2020 ) highlight that queer identities are not included within the SDGs, yet they relate their research to several SDGs such as SDG 5, 10, 11 and 16. They argued that “these goals demonstrate the centrality of inclusivity to the development of sustainable communities'' (Ong et al. 2020 , p. 1477). Poku et al. ( 2017 ) went one step further and postulated the need to queer the SDGs by linking opportunities for addressing social exclusion for LGBTI in Africa to the SDGs.

(iv) Based on the set of the literature we analyzed, all in all, gender and sustainability research utilize a broad range of methods that allow for different forms of knowledge (Spangenberg 2011 ). However, we find strong links between specific methods and certain areas of sustainability within the emerging groups within the identified literature. For example, nearly all research in cluster seven, which focuses on corporations and economy, uses a quantitative statistical approach, while other clusters are defined by qualitative methods and lack quantitative ones. This methodological homogeneity within certain research clusters highlights already established preferences for certain methods in specific fields of research, disciplines and focal topics where some methods are more adequate than others. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of gender and sustainability, however, we critically regard these links as they often emerge from previously existing research traditions and thus lack methodological plurality.

(v) Within the examined literature, the two investigated understandings of gender, namely non-binarity and intersectionality, are differently acknowledged and incorporated in the reviewed literature. Very few authors challenge the gender binary approaches within the considered scientific articles, where less than a fifth of the papers considered gender to be socially constructed (14%) or non-binary (5%). While the vast majority of papers do not explicitly state that they build on a binary understanding of gender, they nevertheless replicate or suggest a binarity in their focus and/or empirical categorization that clearly indicates a binary division. Moreover, some papers put forward ethical or moral differences in men and women when it comes to sustainability. For example, some researchers are led by gender assumptions which often originate from the field of eco-feminism such as women being more caring of the environment, since they have a natural disposition to care and to being a mother (Brough et al. 2016 ; Lau et al. 2021 ). When such proposals do not pay attention to gender norms and power imbalances, they run the risk of further naturalizing the gender binarity as ‘immutable biological differences’ (Lau et al. 2021 ). Lastly, we find that gender differences are nearly always illustrated on behalf of women. While an explicit focus on women’s lives in research can be useful and necessary, it should not be limited to it. A narrow focus on women excludes many other genders from research and can furthermore evoke the assumption that gender equality and sustainability are ‘women’s issues’ (Lau et al. 2021 ).

No pattern regarding the temporal increase or decrease of non-binary or socially constructed gender understanding can be found in the body of literature examined by us, in absolute numbers or in proportions.

In summary, theories and findings from gender studies like the constructivist turn and queer theory as well as intersectionality are yet to permeate the field of sustainability research.

Within the examined research, there is clearly a limited acknowledgment of intersectionality, with less than a third of all articles using other social categories apart from gender in their analysis or applying even an intersectional approach. Intersectionality was thus applied in diverse research cluster groups underlining the importance for a diverse methodological approach to investigate intersectionality (Rice et al 2019 ). Intersectionality is most frequently addressed in the research cluster focusing on gender and institutions, meaning that this literature named and utilized the concept. We refrained from making a deeper analysis of whether more than one social category was analyzed, which would demand a deeper text analysis. We refrained from such interpretation, because due to the short form of peer-reviewed papers such information is often omitted or not coherently reported. However, intersectionality often is hardly mentioned in the analyzed papers, neither as a word nor as a concept. Instead, different identity categories than gender are merely used to further characterize the research subject(s). For instance, Theobald et al. ( 2017 ) referred to intersectionality in their research regarding gender mainstreaming within health and neglected tropical diseases, highlighting the impact of gender on health issues while acknowledging the intersection of gender with other axes of inequality. They illustrated how dimensions of gender interact with poverty, (dis)ability, occupation, power, geography and other individual positionalities in shaping impacts on health and care programs (Theobald et al. 2017 ).

The concept of intersectionality is applied on a diversity of topics. As Rice et al. ( 2019 ) point out, there is also “no single method for undertaking intersectional research. It can be used with many methods and approaches, quantitative and qualitative” (Rice et al. 2019 , p. 418). In addition to previously mentioned example papers from our analysis focusing on tourism as well as sustainability education, there are suggestions to match the SDGs with an intersectional conceptualization (Stephens et al. 2018 ; Zamora et al. 2018 ). Similarly, attempts to integrate intersectionality to other long standing policy communities such as global health exist (Theobald et al. 2017 ). Hardy et al. ( 2020 ) integrate the concept into research on indigenous youth. Such papers showcase the strong connectivity of the concept to many different branches of research. By integrating diverse voices, showcasing how injustices are intertwined and that different reasons for injustices amplify each other, intersectionality can serve as a strong foundational concept within sustainability science (Maina-Okori et al. 2018 ). Our review showcases that the majority of papers focusing on gender do not utilize the concept. Within the analyzed literature, overall citation rates are comparably low and the most highly cited papers do not utilize the concept. In summary, intersectionality has not fully reached the sustainability science community as of yet.

Before we come to our final conclusions, we would like to again reflect upon our positionality as scholars researching this topic. We recognize that we as scholars have a highly privileged position in academia as well as the world, both regarding resources and the institutions at which we are working in that make our voices heard. We would like to use this position to address the existing power dynamics within sustainability science to other equally privileged scholars. We hope to reflect upon and challenge the deeply embedded power structures within Western academic knowledge production as well as considering the role gender inclusive and intersectional approaches can play in addressing sustainability problems. This paper is a mere attempt to grasp the research that has so far been conducted upon gender in sustainability science, and from our end a definitive work in progress. Yet, this is then also the ultimate goal in writing this paper, to progress, even if it is only one step at a time.

Finally, we would like to give an outlook on what findings have been published in the period following our research period. For this purpose, we again entered our search string in the Scopus database and searched for articles on gender in sustainability science for the period January 2021 to October 2022. This search yielded a further 2.304 articles after applying our exclusion criteria. To narrow the analysis, we sorted these results by citation and looked at the articles with the highest citations. This cursory scan reveals that many papers consider gender only as an empirical category of analysis, and that these are thematically related to the field of economics and health, for example, with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few focus on gender as a central research interest. These results also largely coincide with the results of this review. As a perspective, we would like to highlight the COVID-19 pandemic once again, because the analyses and studies that have been conducted in connection with gender can shed new light on the role of gender during global crises and are therefore an important contribution to sustainability science.

We have systematically examined the development and state of research focusing on gender in sustainability science by means of a quantitative analysis of 1054 peer-reviewed papers published between 1991 and 2021. Our analysis clearly illustrates that while a diverse body of literature on gender exists within sustainability science, several research clusters with different focal points are emerging. As all these branches of the literature utilize diverse methodological approaches and different conceptual foundations; there is a lack of a more holistic integration of the topic within the broader literature. While the word “holistic” is a clearly big claim, we can underline based on our review that conceptual foundations, definitions and agreement on the most simple terms and procedures are lacking to this day, while at the same time the problems of gender issues are mounting.

It is highly likely that the recent surge in literature will increase. Thus, we put forward five tangible suggestions on how the research community could further evolve below.

Although a research focus on gender will not solve the prevalent problem of postcolonial research structures, an increasing diversity of voices with different backgrounds would bring forth new and diverse knowledge. At this point, we would like to draw particular attention to the theories and bodies of knowledge of Black feminists, as well as Indigenous knowledge and decolonial approaches.

We advise the research community to build on distinct definitions of sustainability as well as to put a strong focus on the contribution toward solutions for sustainability challenges. The creation of descriptive-analytical system knowledge which outlines the current status quo of gender equality with regards to sustainability and points out many current problems is a necessary and helpful first step. Yet, knowing the mechanics and causes of a problem does not translate into knowing how to approach and move toward a state of more equality. We therefore urge scholars to also apply a solution-oriented perspective in their research regarding gender in sustainability science.

Moreover, although there is seemingly much research that discusses gender issues, only a low proportion of those papers actively engage with gender on an empirical level. To achieve the goal of a world with less inequalities, more research should enable deep normative understandings of diverse and inclusive recognitions of gender identities and associated social, economic and cultural consequences as well as investigate pathways of transformation and sustainable change. While such normative claims may facilitate ethical evaluations, more work is needed to enable an inclusive understanding of the context of such evaluations.

All in all, the emerging research clusters showcase that there are engaged researchers that focus on gender within sustainability science. However, there are gaps between the clusters where for example a recognition of intersectionality would hold benefits for more researchers, and a higher methodological plurality may benefit knowledge production, to name two examples. What is clear is that within sustainability science, gender issues are widely ignored to this day, and based on the systematic review we conducted, we can encourage more research on gender issues and diversity.

When gender is integrated as an analytical foundation or a concept associated with gender is being utilized within sustainability science, the critical perspective that the academic field of gender studies has developed over the past decades is seldom integrated, e.g., theories on the social construction of gender, queer theory and Black feminist theory. The concept of intersectionality should especially be further acknowledged, as it may shed a stronger light on perceived and endured injustices and give hope for a greater involvement of researchers not only to investigate these issues, but also to help to overcome them.

While our review only focuses on peer-reviewed literature and thus can only offer a specific perspective, we hope yet to offer a contribution to the bigger picture, thereby creating a link between gender and sustainability.

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Intersectionality.

The concept of intersectionality describes the ways in which systems of inequality intersect, or interlock, to create unique dynamics and effects. Popularized by Crenshaw ( 1989 ), this idea was expressed one of the first times by the Combahee River Collective in 1977. The collective pinned down how their identity as queer, middle-class, Black women led to a specific and distinct experience of oppression and exclusion, resulting in the need to develop an “integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking” (Combahee River Collective 1977/ 2018 ). Even though the historical focus of intersectionality was on gender, race and class, the concept is not limited to these axes of social difference, but can and should include many more items such as, for example, disability or sexuality (Bührmann 2009 ; Butler 1990 ; Lutz 2002 ; Nash 2008 ).

We refer to gender as a historical construct consisting of attributes, norms, roles, opportunities, responsibilities and expectations that are socially, culturally and institutionally embedded and produce certain gender identities and social constructs (Arevalo 2020 ; Lieu et al. 2020 ; Mechlenborg and Gram-Hanssen 2020 ). Consequently, gender is not ‘given’ but learned and therefore dynamic and changing across a diverse and fluid spectrum (Curth and Evans 2011 ; Moyo and Dhliwayo 2019 ). In this paper, we focus on two important aspects, namely (i) the idea that gender is not biologically determined in a binary of man and woman but instead socially constructed and (ii) the acknowledgment of the ‘intersectional’ nature of gender, i.e., the idea that one’s gendered experience of life overlaps and interacts with other axes of identity and systems of oppression (Richardson 2015 ).

• Sustainability

We refer to sustainability based on the widely quoted definition by the Brundtland report from 1987 as meeting present needs without compromising the ability to compromise the needs of future generations (Brundtland 1987 ). Furthermore, our sustainability understanding includes an integrational perspective, also referred to as nested circles model, meaning that sustainability builds on economic, social and ecological dimensions that are interdependent and interconnected (Lozano 2008 ; Odrowaz-Coates 2021 ). In this framework, in opposition to others, the economic and social pillars are not independent from the environmental dimension, but instead depend on it (Mebratu 1998 ).

Global North/Global South

Since there is no agreed definition of these terms, we use the definition by Martins ( 2020 ) as well as Odeh ( 2010 ). The distinction between Global North and Global South is not a mere geographical one, but has its roots in colonialism and imperialism. It is important to mention that neither the North nor the South are homogeneous. The global South refers broadly to a grouping of countries that are agrarian based and experience economic and political marginalization within the global system. Global South countries often have a shared history of colonization and exploitation. The global North refers to regions traditionally referred to as ‘the West’ such as Europe, North America and Australia, among others. These countries are wealthy, technologically advanced, politically stable and aging as well as dominate the Global South in international trade (Martins 2020 ; Odeh 2010 ).

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Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Paola belingheri.

1 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Filippo Chiarello

Andrea fronzetti colladon.

2 Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

3 Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

Paola Rovelli

4 Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

Compensation

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

Funding Statement

P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

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Gender Equity in Education: A Review of the Literature

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Gender Inequality at Work: A Literature Review

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