Abstract
Kiribati has made significant progress in promoting gender equality in many aspects including in health indicators and access to education. However, gender inequalities in labor force participation, living standards, and legal equity persist. This paper illustrates how improvement in gender equality, including female legal equity, could help support growth. Policies to address gender gaps could include strengthening gender equality in the legal framework, introducing gender budgeting and fiscal policy reforms, and developing gender-disaggregated data collection for better monitoring.
Gender Equality in Kiribati: Achievements and Prospects1
Kiribati has made significant progress in promoting gender equality in many aspects including in health indicators and access to education. However, gender inequalities in labor force participation, living standards, and legal equity persist. This paper illustrates how improvement in gender equality, including female legal equity, could help support growth. Policies to address gender gaps could include strengthening gender equality in the legal framework, introducing gender budgeting and fiscal policy reforms, and developing gender-disaggregated data collection for better monitoring.
A. Context
1. In Kiribati, females fare better compared to their male peers in several human development indicators. Health outcomes are significantly better for females where they have much lower child mortality rates and are expected to live longer than men by about 8 years (Table 1). A similar picture could be observed in education attainment. While females and males have equal net enrollment rate at the primary school level, net enrollment rates of females are significantly higher than those of males in both lower and upper secondary schools. This phenomenon of higher education for females (in terms of secondary gross enrollment rate) is found to be similar in most Pacific Islands countries (text chart). Females also have better education outcomes, as shown by their lower share in reading or writing difficulty compared to their male peers.2
Kiribati: Selected Indicator on Gender Equality
All indicators of living standard are calculated for male- and female-head households using household data.
Kiribati: Selected Indicator on Gender Equality
| Indicators (percent if not indicated) | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, primary | 96 | 95 |
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, lower secondary | 77 | 82 |
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, upper secondary | 48 | 57 |
| Difficulty in writing (% of population 12+) | 18.9 | 15.9 |
| Difficulty in reading (% of population 12+) | 18.7 | 15.9 |
| Life expectancy at birth (years) | 64.3 | 72.3 |
| Mortality rate, under 5 (per 1,000 live births, child) | 53.9 | 45.0 |
| Labor force participation rate | 54.4 | 40.5 |
| Formality rate | 41.4 | 49.3 |
| Unemployment rate | 10.5 | 12.4 |
| Proportion in Managerial Position | 62.8 | 37.2 |
| Proportion in National Parliament | 93.5 | 6.5 |
| Average annual per capita income (AUD) | 3,627 | 1,881 |
| Average annual per capita expenditure (AUD) | 3,095 | 1,652 |
All indicators of living standard are calculated for male- and female-head households using household data.
Kiribati: Selected Indicator on Gender Equality
| Indicators (percent if not indicated) | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, primary | 96 | 95 |
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, lower secondary | 77 | 82 |
| Adjusted net enrollment rate, upper secondary | 48 | 57 |
| Difficulty in writing (% of population 12+) | 18.9 | 15.9 |
| Difficulty in reading (% of population 12+) | 18.7 | 15.9 |
| Life expectancy at birth (years) | 64.3 | 72.3 |
| Mortality rate, under 5 (per 1,000 live births, child) | 53.9 | 45.0 |
| Labor force participation rate | 54.4 | 40.5 |
| Formality rate | 41.4 | 49.3 |
| Unemployment rate | 10.5 | 12.4 |
| Proportion in Managerial Position | 62.8 | 37.2 |
| Proportion in National Parliament | 93.5 | 6.5 |
| Average annual per capita income (AUD) | 3,627 | 1,881 |
| Average annual per capita expenditure (AUD) | 3,095 | 1,652 |
All indicators of living standard are calculated for male- and female-head households using household data.
Gender Difference in Secondary Gross Enrollment Rate
(In percentage point, 2020 or latest available data)
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
Sources: World Development Indicators; and IMF staff calculation.Note: Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially correspond to the level of education shown. Gender difference is calculated as the difference between female and male ratios.2. Despite the higher educational enrollment rates, females have lower labor force participation rate and face higher risks of unemployment. Women in Kiribati account for a disproportionate share of unpaid work. They are found to spend three to eight hours per day for domestic work compared to the “infrequent” assistance role of men in doing housework (Caulfield, 2018). Greater time spent on domestic work could partially explain why the labor force participation rate for females is approximately 14 percentage points (ppts) lower than that of males.3 The difference, however, is smaller than most of other countries in the region (Figure 1, left panel). According to the 2020 Kiribati Census Report, the female unemployment rate in 2020 was about 2 ppts higher than the male rate, although this gender gap is at lower end in the Pacific Islands region (Figure 1, right panel). Gender differences in types of employment by sector exist as well, with more women than men working in public services sectors such as administrative, education, and health while men mostly engage in fisheries and agriculture (text chart).4 Women are under-represented in managerial positions, holding only 37.2 percent of these positions in 2020. Similarly, women held only 6.5 percent of seats in the National Parliament in 2020. The numbers make Kiribati rank fourth and sixth respectively on share of women holding managerial positions and seats in the Parliament out of 11 countries in the Pacific (ADB, 2021).
Kiribati: Gender Comparison in Labor Outcomes
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
Breakdown of Employment by Industry
(In percent of total male and female population, 2020)
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
Sources: 2020 Kiribati Census Report; and IMF staff calculations.3. Women in Kiribati are more vulnerable to poverty than men, which could have been further worsened by COVID-19. According to the 2019–2020 Kiribati Household Income and Expenditure Survey (KNSO 2021), female-head households earned just half of what male-head households earned in terms of average per capita income (Table 1). As a result, male-head households have higher per capita expenditure and higher savings—57 percent and 13 percent higher in terms of annual expenditure per capita and total savings, respectively—than female-head households. It is also reported that one in four female-head households is in the poorest quintile in South Tarawa and the rural Gilbert Islands (AusAID, 2012). The situation is expected to have been worsened during COVID-19 as the pandemic affected women disproportionately. Female labor could have been possibly adversely affected as a large proportion of women are working in the service sector, especially in retail sales (Figure 1, right panel).5 In addition, female-owned/led businesses were more negatively affected than male-owned businesses during the pandemic. According to Pacific Trade Investment (2020), 71 percent of female-owned businesses reported having experienced a very negative effect (compared to 57 percent of male-owned businesses) and 41 percent had to be temporarily closed (compared to 29 percent of male-owned businesses).
B. Impact of Gender Equality on Growth
4. This section conducts a growth decomposition exercise to provide illustrative insights into the impact that gender inequality in Kiribati has on growth compared to peer countries. It follows the approach in Hakura et al. (2016) who use a growth regression that controls for the impact of initial income, investment, education, infrastructure, terms of trade, institutional quality, population, and inflation. The variables are as follows: initial income per capita is measured as the log of GDP per capita in the first year of each five year period; investment is measured using fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP; education is defined as the total average years of schooling; infrastructure is measured based on an index of mobile phones, internet per 100 people, access to water and electricity, and total air transportation per year; terms of trade is defined as the ratio between export prices and import prices; institutional quality is from the International Country Risk Guide index, which captures the quality of political institutions in a country; population is the rate of dependent population growth; and inflation is measured by a dummy capturing periods of average inflation of 15 percent and above. Each of the variables is constructed as the five-year average except for the initial income per capita variable.
5. The analysis also includes indices on gender inequality (Box 1), legal institutions, and a measure of income inequality. Legal institutions are measured using an index based on the dataset from the World Bank Women, Business, and the Law. Values range from 0 to 6 and reflect the sum of six dummy variables, with higher values indicating higher legal rights for women: 1) unmarried women have equal property rights for immovable property; 2) married women have equal inheritance rights; 3) joint titling of property is default for married couples; 4) married women can get a job or pursue a profession; 5) adult married woman can open a bank account; and 6) married woman can sign contracts (without permission from another family member).6 Income inequality is captured by the ratio of income held by the richest 20 percent of the population relative to the poorest 40 percent.
Construction of Gender Inequality Index (GII) for Kiribati
The Gender Inequality Index (GII), published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), provides a measure of inequality across countries using indicators on reproductive health, labor market, and women’s empowerment variables. The index ranges from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating higher gender inequality. Five representative indicators of the three aspects are used in the index’s calculation: (i) maternal mortality ratio, (ii) adolescent birth rates, (iii) proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females, (iv) female and male labor market participation rates, and (v) proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education.
In the latest publication (2020), the GII was unavailable for Kiribati due to missing information for indicators (iv) and (v). The data gap is common among Pacific Island countries, where only four countries—Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea—had the indices published. Our attempt is to fill in the missing indicators for Kiribati, either by locating other alternative sources of information and/or calculating approximations to calculate the index.
Labor force participation rates (indicator iv) was augmented by using data from the 2020 Kiribati Census published in November 2021. The UNDP usually uses the data from International Labor Organization which does not have data on Kiribati.
Estimates for the education indicators (indicator v) proved to be more complicated, as there is no available education data for the defined population of aged 25 years and older. However, the 2019 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) provides useful information for approximating the numbers.
• Percentage of population having at least some secondary education: According to the survey, 86.2 percent of the population aged 18 and older had attended secondary school. Given the recent efforts to revamp education enrollment by the government and its positive impact on schooling for younger ages (population aged 18–24 accounts for a quarter of total population aged 18+), excluding these young cohorts from the adult population will likely lower the respective proportion in the remaining (aged 25+) population. The analysis therefore assumes that the proportion of the population aged 25 and older having at least some secondary education could range between 70 percent to 80 percent.
• Gender disparity in education: As shown in Table 1, girls at the age of secondary school have 5 ppts higher secondary enrollment rates than boys. The HIES 2019 survey also shows that the proportion of those having attended secondary school was 63.3 percent for men and 66.8 percent for women. Based on the numbers, it assumes that the differences between men and women could range between 3–5 ppts for the subjected indicators.
With the aforementioned information, six scenarios are assessed, with the proportion of male with at least some secondary education assumed to be 60 percent, 70 percent, and 80 percent, and those of female being 3–5 ppts higher than male for each scenario. The calculated GII ranged from 0.3919 to 0.3931. The marginal changes of GII allow the stability of the estimated results of the growth decomposition exercise among different scenarios. The calculated GII is also more or less at the same level with other PICs countries. Compared to four PICs countries having the index available, Kiribati’s index was slightly higher (i.e., lower gender equality) than those of Fiji (0.37), Samoa (0.36), and Tonga (0.35) but significantly lower (i.e. higher gender equality) than that of Papua New Guinea (0.725).
6. The regression sample consists of 115 low-income and developing countries, emerging markets, and advanced economies covering the period 1995 to 2014. The following equation is estimated:
yi = β1+ β2,iXi + εt
in which yi is the GDP per capita growth, Xi captures the aforementioned explanatory variables, and εt is the error term. A robust two-step GMM methodology could control for endogeneity issues.7 The estimation uses the coefficients from this regression to decompose the differences in average real GDP per capita growth rates in Kiribati and a benchmark group of countries in the bottom 30 percent of the global income distribution based on data from 2010 through 2018.
7. The results from this exercise help illustrate the potential GDP growth losses from Kiribati’s higher level of legal barriers than those found in the peer group (Figure 2).8 The figure shows that Kiribati’s relatively higher level of schooling and their overall lower level of gender inequality are positively associated with GDP growth. However, the level of female legal equity had a negative impact on the country’s growth relative to the peer countries.
Kiribati: Results of Growth Decomposition Model
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
Source: IMF staff calculations.8. The better-than-average GII in Kiribati however masks a significant heterogeneity among its sub-components (text chart). A comparison of the sub-components of the GII that Kiribati has actual data reveals that Kiribati fares far better than peers in the health indicators, with both maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rate much lower in Kiribati than those of the benchmark group. Meanwhile, women empowerment is relatively weak in Kiribati with lower parliament seats held by women and lower female labor force participation rate. Thus, while the results indicate a positive contribution of gender equality to growth in Kiribati compared to peers, there are areas that still have room for improvement.
Gender Inequality Index by Sub-components
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
Sources: UNDP; 2020 Kiribati Census; and IMF staff calculations.Note: Data are for 2019 or the latest available year.9. A counter-factual growth decomposition exercise is conducted to capture the potential impact of these more recent legal reforms. Since the end of the sample period, Kiribati has introduced legal reforms to enhance women’s economic participation. For example, the World Bank Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) report (WB, 2022) highlights how, in 2018, Kiribati eliminated all restrictions on women’s employment, including previous restrictions on women working at night and in the mining sector. The growth decomposition exercise described in the preceding paragraphs would not fully capture the impact of these legal reforms for two reasons. First, the reforms took place towards the end of our sample period (2018).9 Second, it usually takes time for legal reforms to have an impact on gender-related outcomes. However, as Christopherson et al. (2022) note, laws can influence and change moral and cultural beliefs and produce positive outcomes in gender equality. Therefore, the analysis applies a counter-factual growth decomposition exercise by taking the average of the legal rights index for the six benchmark group countries closest in ranking to Kiribati in 2021 (three countries higher than Kiribati and three countries lower). This allows us to illustrate what impact legal reforms could have had on growth in Kiribati had they been completed during the last time period of our regression (yellow bar in Figure 2).10
C. Policies: Progress in the Past and Options for the Future
10. Kiribati has introduced several reforms to promote gender equality. In its National Policy for Gender Equality and Women’s Development (GEWD) 2019–2022, the government aimed to build a country where “all Kiribati men and women reach their full potential.” Five areas of policy were prioritized: (i) implementing gender mainstreaming,11 (ii) improving economic empowerment of women, (iii) supporting stronger and informed families, (iv) improving women’s leadership, and (v) eliminating gender-based violence. In 2015, the Employment and Industrial Relations Code was amended to address gender harassment at workplace, promote equal pay for equal work, and introduce maternity leave which was one of the major advances on gender equality. Additionally, the Family Peace Act and its Implementation Plan (2014) and the Eliminating Sexual and Gender Based Violence (ESGBV) Policy 2011–2021 were also adopted to tackle the prevalent domestic violence in the country. These efforts have resulted in steady improvement of Kiribati’s performance of gender equality in terms of the legal framework, marking significant advance of Kiribati compared to other Pacific Islands as well as the lower middle-income group in average in this area (Figure 3).
Kiribati: Improvement of Legal Framework on Gender
Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2023, 226; 10.5089/9798400247606.002.A003
11. However, opportunities for additional reforms remain. For example, in the WBL dataset, Kiribati receives a low score on the measure of Parenthood. This is driven by the fact that the country does not guarantee paid paternity or parental leave, the length of maternity leave is shorter than the recommended 14 weeks (it is currently 84 days), and it does not administer maternity leave benefits. The legal framework also does not grant spouses equal administrative authorities over assets during marriage. Many women also currently do not have the same ownership rights to immovable property (lands, etc.) as men,12 and the legal framework does not ban gender discrimination in access to credit. Going forward, the country could consider options for introducing paternity or parental leave and addressing gender discrimination in access to credit/assets, as reforms in these areas could increase women’s ability and motivation to work and further support gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.
12. In addition, gender budgeting (GB) could help promote gender equality. Gender budgeting allows fiscal authorities to ensure that revenue and spending policies and public financial management instruments address gender inequality and the advancement of women in areas such as education, health, and economic empowerment (Budlender and Hewitt, 2003; Budlender and Sharp, 1998; Elson, 2003; Stotsky, 2006 and 2016; IMF, 2017 and 2020; Kolovich, 2018). By understanding the impact of policies and budget proposals—both intended and unintended—on gender equality, governments could use gender budgeting to help design fiscal policies and implement more effective budgets to support gender equality. For instance, gender impact assessments of investment projects and budget proposals could be conducted to facilitate budgetary decisions, alongside with tracking these budget allocations through its execution. In the case of Kiribati, one initial areas of focus could be investment in infrastructure (e.g., access to sanitation facilities, and clean water)13 or childcare/elderly care facilities. The government could conduct an assessment of their potential impact on gender—whether they help reduce the unpaid work burdens women face and support female labor force participation—and to prioritize this spending based on the assessment.
13. Analytical work on other low-income countries shows the potential positive impacts on fiscal policy reforms. Fabrizio et al. (2020) find that fiscal policies that address gender inequality (e.g., infrastructure or education investment, sanitation facilities, and parental leave) can not only help support female labor force participation but also have a positive impact on economic growth while reducing poverty and income inequality. Moreover, the authors show that most of these measures, in the long run, pay for themselves, as higher rate of labor force participation increases economic activity, growth, and tax revenues. In Senegal, for example, the authors use an analytical model to examine the impact of investment in safe water infrastructure and find that it would increase female labor force participation by about 9 ppts, and reduce poverty and income inequality.
14. Finally, collecting and analyzing gender-disaggregated data would allow Kiribati to accurately monitor its gender-related goals. The government acknowledged the need for gender-disaggregated data for systematic use for policy planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The Ministry of Women, Youth, Sports and Social Affairs (MWYSSA) has started the work to collect gender-disaggregated data. However, by December 2020, only 21.3 percent of indicators needed to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a gender perspective were available (UN, 2021). Data on poverty, wage payments, and access to assets/credit are also not available. Given the low institutional capacity in Kiribati, significant efforts are required in improving data collection and management, both in terms of data quality and data frequency, to facilitate accurate and timely monitoring and supervision.
D. Conclusion
15. While making significant achievements in promoting gender equality, further progress could be made to remove the still relevant gender gaps in Kiribati. Women in the country have fared well in terms of health and education, but face gender gaps in labor force participation rates, unemployment, income, and poverty. Legal barriers remain, particularly in terms of parenthood and access to assets/credit. Though the overall level of gender inequality is lower compared to the average of other countries in the same income group, there is a considerable heterogeneity among different categories, indicating room for improvement. Closing gender gaps could potentially support higher growth and help the country achieve its SDGs. Policies to strengthen gender equality include strengthening gender equality in the legal framework; introducing gender budgeting and fiscal policy reforms; and developing gender-disaggregated data collection for better awareness and monitoring.
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Prepared by Lisa Kolovich (SPR) and Anh Thi Ngoc Nguyen (APD).
While efforts to improve attendance rate in higher education are necessary for both genders, male education needs to be better promoted. This could partially be done by eradicating the worst forms of child labor for boys, as it is estimated that 8.6 percent of boys aged 5–17 years old engaged in child labor in 2019, higher than a 5.5 percent of girls (ADB, 2021). In 2015, the government tackled the issue by amending the Employment and Industrial Relations Code with an increase the minimum working age, the abandon of worst forms of child labor, and requirements to register child employees.
Low female labor force participation rate could also result from barriers in terms of parenthood and access to credit and property (see Section C for more details).
A high concentration of male labor in agriculture and fisheries could be a result of both the nature of fishery work which requires physical strength with (to a less extent) lower education levels. This gender distribution in sectors also explains why female have slightly higher formal rate than male. However, higher formality among women does not necessarily lead to higher income (Table 1) as fisheries also include a small proportion of high-earning seafaring jobs which is dominated by men (MWYSSA, 2018). More data on income by gender is required for better understanding and assessment.
While there is no data on the impact of COIVID-19 on female labor force participation in Kiribati due to limited data capacity, similar incidences were seen in other countries including both advanced and emerging markets (Bluedorn et. al, 2021).
The female legal equity index represents gender inequality in terms of legal framework, while the gender inequality index represents gender inequality in terms of health, education, and economic empowerment.
A common issue with growth regressions is endogeneity. Instrumental variable techniques can be challenging due to the difficulty in finding acceptable instruments; that is, variables that are uncorrelated with the error term but partially and sufficiently associated with GDP growth. The GMM method is used for this analysis to addresses endogeneity issues.
Prior to the reforms, Kiribati ranked in the bottom half of the middle of low- to lower-middle income countries on the WBL index in 2010. By 2021 though, the country had moved up to the top third of this group.
This counterfactual example assumes that no other countries in the benchmark group have introduced legal reforms that could have a positive impact of gender equality.
Gender mainstreaming is the process of integrating a gender perspective into all government policies, programs and activities.
Some native land codes grant the right of inheriting a larger proportion of inherited lands to sons over daughters, regardless the wills of parents.
A study by the Asian Development Bank (2021) points to the challenges in accessing fresh water in the South Tarawa region of Kiribati, while a study by the World Bank (2019) notes that women spend more time than men on fetching water for cleaning, washing, and child- and elder-care-related activities.
