Assessing the Macro-Criticality of Gender Gaps in Chad1
Author:
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Search for other papers by International Monetary Fund. African Dept. in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
Publication Date:
12 Dec 2024
eISBN:
9798400295249
Language:
English
Keywords:
development partner; opportunity index; potential GDP; Policy recommendation; gender disparity; Gender inequality; Women; Gender diversity; Global
Download PDF (280.7 KB)

This paper takes stock of gender gaps in Chad, providing a comparison across different countries and regions, and illustrates their macro-criticality in Chad. The paper also estimates the potential cost of child marriage in terms of lost real GDP growth (2.8 percent a year). Core policy advice aims at reducing gender-based violence and early marriage, while promoting women’s economic empowerment. Key policy measures include the promotion of schools dedicated to girls, school feeding programs, and more particularly in remote and rural areas, literacy centers with vocational trainings.

This paper takes stock of gender gaps in Chad, providing a comparison across different countries and regions, and illustrates their macro-criticality in Chad. The paper also estimates the potential cost of child marriage in terms of lost real GDP growth (2.8 percent a year). Core policy advice aims at reducing gender-based violence and early marriage, while promoting women’s economic empowerment. Key policy measures include the promotion of schools dedicated to girls, school feeding programs, and more particularly in remote and rural areas, literacy centers with vocational trainings.

A. Introduction

1. Despite the authorities’ efforts over recent years, gender disparity in Chad remains elevated. Important causes of gender inequality include early and forced marriage, limited access to education and employment, and gender-based violence. The country's heightened vulnerability to climate change exacerbates pre-existing disparities, and economic factors, such as the lack of financial resources and social protection, inadequate healthcare infrastructure and the overrepresentation of women in the informal sector, further and exacerbate gender disparities.

2. This paper takes stock of gender gaps in Chad and empirically assesses their macroeconomic impact. It establishes the macro-criticality of gender disparities by evaluating gender gaps in key indicators and compares gender gaps across different countries. Using analytical tools recently developed by the IMF, the paper estimates the potential GDP cost of child marriage.

3. The paper is organized as follows. Section B provides a brief summary of the existing literature on the macro impact of gender gaps. Section C gives an overview of the gender disparities in Chad and recent efforts by the authorities to address them. Section D assesses the macroeconomic impact of gender disparities in Chad by estimating the GDP costs of child marriage. Section E concludes with policy recommendations.

B. Literature Review

4. Recent studies have highlighted the far-reaching economic impact of gender disparities on labor force participation, economic growth, and diversification.

  • Ostry et al (2018) find that with an initial Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) rate of 25 percent, and an elasticity of substitution between males and females of 0.75, closing gender gaps in LFP increases GDP by 80 percent. When the initial FLFP is 60 percent, and an elasticity of substitution between males and females of 2, closing LFP gender gaps increases GDP by 10 percent.

  • Kazandijan et al (2016) show that gender inequality decreases the variety of goods countries produce and export, especially in low-income and developing countries.

  • Mishra et al (2020) have quantified the relationship between child marriage and economic growth. Applying a simultaneous equations model, the analysis shows that if child marriage were eliminated, long-term annual per capita real GDP growth in emerging and developing countries would increase by 1.05 percentage points.

  • Frabrizio et al (2020) find that, in low-income countries, education policies and cash transfers increase female labor force participation and growth.2

  • The literature has also explored the impact of: (i) reducing gender gaps and financial inclusion on growth (Cihak and Sahay, 2020); (ii) reducing gender gaps on instability and fragility, and poor governance (Caprioli, 2005; Branisa and others, 2013; Sahay, Cihak et al, 2018); and (iii) the economic costs associated with violence against women (Ouedraogo and Stenzel, 2021).

C. Taking Stock of Gender Gaps in Chad

5. Gender gaps in Chad are estimated to be among the highest in SSA. This is reflected in two indicators measuring gender gaps: the Gender Inequality Index (Figure 1) and the Gender Gap Index (Table 1).3,4

Figure 1.
Figure 1.

Chad: Gender Inequality Index Among Countries with Low Human Development, 2022

Citation: IMF Staff Country Reports 2024, 336; 10.5089/9798400295249.002.A004

Source: 2023-2024 Human Development Report
Table 1.

Chad: Gender Gap Index and Subcomponents, 2024

article image
Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2024.

6. Gender gaps exist in opportunities and in outcomes. Gender disparities exist in opportunities, which include access to education, health, protection from violence, finance, and legal rights, as well as in outcomes, such as labor force participation, entrepreneurship, and employment and decision-making. Using the gender gap subindexes and other data sources, we examine those different angles below.

Gender Gaps in Opportunities

  • Access to education. According to the 2024 Global Gender Gap report, Chad is the country with the lowest educational attainment scores in the world, with low performance across all dimensions (Table 2). These findings align with data from the World Bank indicating a literacy rate of only 20 percent among women ages 15 and above.

  • Health and survival. Health indicators show that a significant share of women have experienced violence in their lifetime, and early marriage rates are much higher in Chad than in SSA (Table 3).

Table 2.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Education, 2024

article image
Table 3.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Health, 2024

article image

  • Access to finance. Data shows that more men than women own a bank account in Chad, and that the gender gap is among the largest in SSA (Table 4).

Table 4.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Access to Finance

article image

  • Access to legal rights. The Women Business and the Law (WBL) index score in Chad stands at 66.3, below the SSA regional average of 72.6 (Table 5).5 Low scores are observed in WBL subindexes, reflecting constraints on freedom of movement, in laws influencing women's decisions to work, laws impacting women's pay, constraints related to marriage, regulations affecting women's work after having children, limitations on women starting and managing businesses, as well as gender gaps in property and inheritance.

Table 5.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Access to Legal Rights

article image

  • Economic participation. Based on the Economic Participation and Opportunity Index, Chad achieves about 50 percent gender parity, which is comparable to Mali but lower than Niger where the Economic Participation and Opportunity Index stands at 66.4 percent (Table 6). The labor force participation gaps and employment gaps are in fact among the highest in SSA. When women work, they mostly do so in the informal sector, in subsistence agriculture, where they are over-represented. Income gaps reflect the undervaluation of women’s work, with almost half of the overall earned income gap yet to close. Moreover, only 22 percent of the gender gap in Chad has been closed in professional and technical professions, and only 12 percent of firms have women among their top managers.

Table 6.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Economic Participation, 2024

article image

  • Women in decision-making positions. Based on the political empowerment index, about 35.3 percent of the gender gap in parliament has been closed.6 The gender gap in ministerial positions is higher, with a parity score of 20.8.

Table 7.

Chad: Gender Gap Indicators – Decision-Making Positions, 2024

article image
Source: Global Gender Gap Report, 2024.

Some Recent Efforts but Stronger Implementation is Needed

7. In recent years, the authorities, together with development partners, have taken several policy measures and initiatives aimed at addressing gender inequality. These policies and programs promote gender-sensitive approaches, seek to empower women and girls, and increase their economic participation in various sectors.

  • Gender quotas in politics. Chad adopted in March 2021 a gender quota, which reserves 30 percent of seats in the National Assembly and local councils for women, aiming at increasing women’s representation in political decision-making bodies. While there has been some improvement in the recent governments that took place during the transition period, quotas have yet to be fully met and will be closely examined in the coming legislative elections, expected at the end of 2024.

  • National Gender Policy. Chad adopted a National Gender Policy in September 2017. The National Gender Policy outlines strategies and actions to promote gender equality and women's empowerment across various sectors, including education, health, and economic development. In 2023, Chad adopted its first National Action Plan for the period 2023-2027, which aims at reinforcing the role of women in peacekeeping processes and the prevention and resolution of conflicts.7 Implementation of the national gender policy and action plan are however constrained by limited resources as well as social and cultural impediments.

  • Education Initiatives. The authorities, with support from development partners, launched several initiatives to improve girls' access to education. For example, the World Food Program (WFP) helps the authorities provide a nutritious daily meal. This program has shown excellent results in strengthening the retention of girls in school, especially adolescent girls, preventing early marriage and delaying the age of the first pregnancy. However, the WFP needs more financial resources to continue and expand this program across the entire country.

  • Economic Empowerment Programs. Programs and projects have been established to support women's economic participation, such as vocational training, microfinance initiatives, and smallscale entrepreneurship opportunities. For example, in 2020, the Ministry of Finance created a credit guarantee fund of CFAF 30 billion (or about US$50 million) providing guarantees for entrepreneurship loans for women and youth in key economic sectors, such as agriculture and new technologies. While the loans also benefit from tax exemptions for five years, only a few have been granted so far. This reflects banks’ risk aversion, a lack of awareness of the population regarding the existence of those funds, lack of support along the entrepreneurship process, and weak financial literacy, which makes applying for those funds very challenging, especially for those who need them the most.

  • Healthcare Services. The authorities and development partners work to improve women's access to healthcare services, particularly maternal and reproductive health. For example, UNFPA’s current programs target reducing the maternal mortality rate, and aim at strengthening capacity at the Ministry of Public Health, including through the provision of technical skills, medical equipment, and reproductive health commodities. Moreover, in December 2023, the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihoods Fund, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF, launched a US$48.4 million health initiative, aiming at making health services more accessible in areas that have been the most excluded.

  • Legal Reforms. Efforts have been made to improve women's legal rights, by addressing inheritance rights and the legal age of marriage in the civil code, by introducing paid leave for women and banning the dismissal of pregnant workers in the labor code, and by ensuring that women entrepreneurs can sign a contract and can register their business in the same way as men. However, those laws remain to be enforced effectively. In practice, women still face discrimination when looking to rent a house, when requesting a divorce, or when qualifying for credit.

  • Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Prevention. The authorities have put in place a national legal framework that criminalizes domestic violence and sexual harassment. A national campaign aiming at preventing gender-based violence, including early marriages, started in 2015, and in 2016 the Ministry for Women adopted a roadmap against gender-based violence including early marriages. Initiatives to combat gender-based violence include awareness campaigns, legal assistance for survivors, and dialogues with religious and traditional authorities which started to partake. However, gender-based violence still exists across all provinces, which resulted in a revision of the roadmap. On January 31, 2024, UNICEF in partnership with the Ministry of Women opened a workshop validating a revised roadmap for the period 2024-2026.

  • Rural Development. Rural development programs aim to address gender gaps in rural areas, where many women are engaged in agriculture. These initiatives provide support for women farmers, access to agricultural inputs, and training on sustainable farming practices. For example, SWISSAID is promoting the full involvement of women in their rural communities in several provinces to improve agricultural production and income, through literacy courses, and information about their rights. These types of activities would need to be expanded.

  • Women's Empowerment Centers. Women's Empowerment Centers have been established in various regions of Chad to provide skills training, literacy programs, and resources for women. These centers help women to develop income-generating skills and build self-confidence. For example, UNESCO through its Capacity Development for Education Program (CapED), is supporting women, and youth through literacy and vocational trainings. UNFPA, together with the World Bank, is currently leading the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Project (SWEDD) which aims at empowering women through education.

  • Data Collection and Research. Efforts are being made to improve data collection and research on gender-related issues. In 2022, the authorities, together with the UNFPA created the Observatory for the Promotion of Equality and Gender Equity (OPEG), which aims at collecting, producing, centralizing, and disseminating its analyses to the government and other development partners. However, OPEG is yet to be fully operational.

D. Empirical Analysis

8. Section C highlighted that gender gaps in Chad are very significant in many aspects. It is notably worth noting that child marriage in Chad is particularly high comparison to the region and to the world.

9. This section uses the recently developed IMF gender tool to assess the macro criticality of gender gaps in Chad by estimating the GDP cost of child marriage. The tools use indicators consistent with the growth literature as described in, e.g., Sala-i-Martin et al., 2004. The model follows Mitra et al. (2020), which was the first paper to empirically examine the impact of child marriages. Based on this approach, this section examines how the persistently high rate of child marriage in Chad is impacting the country’s per capita growth. The analysis considers various channels through which this influence could occur. These channels, identified by Wodon et al. (2017), include health, education, fertility, labor force participation, and decision making.

10. The results below indicate that eliminating child marriage in Chad could lead to a 2.8-percentage points increase in economic growth. Child marriage is therefore a significant impediment to economic growth in Chad. Merely reducing child marriage rates to the SSA average level could increase GDP growth by 1.2 percentage points. These findings underscore the significant economic consequences of child marriage in Chad and highlight the potential benefits of addressing this issue for the country's economic growth and development.

Table 8.

Chad: Regression Results

article image
Source: IMF Staff Calculations.

E. Addressing Gender Gaps

11. Addressing gender gaps in Chad would require a multi-faceted approach involving policy measures as much as awareness campaigns. Policy recommendations include the following:

  • Establish gender budgeting across all the ministries. The legal framework, reforms and diverse national strategies are facing implementation challenges partly due to the lack of financial resources. Gender budgeting would therefore help ensure resources are collected and spent in the areas that are most relevant and needed for promoting gender parity.

  • Intensify efforts to promote girls’ access to education, or at least literacy, especially in rural and remote areas. This requires developing and implementing policies and programs aiming at promoting girls’ enrolment and retention in schools, and more particularly in remote and rural areas, the creation and expansion of literacy centers supported by vocational trainings. In remote and rural areas, literacy centers allow basic education and combined with some vocational trainings, would help ensure girls are equipped with the skills for future incomegenerating activities. The creation of primary, middle, and high schools specifically dedicated to girls supported by school feeding programs would also greatly benefit girls’ education, as they help retain children at schools, reduce early marriages and domestic violence.8 Other practical measures include ensuring girls’ bathroom in schools, hiring women teacher to promote mentoring, and financial incentives through targeted cash transfers or conditional scholarships.

  • Promote women’s and girls’ access to health care and improve maternal health. Better health outcomes matter in terms of increasing education levels and returns to education. For example, a hungry child will not have the same performance at school than a child that had a meal. A child’s health is also linked to her mother’s health. Policy recommendations includes continuous work with development partners, such as UNFPA, in order to (i) ensure infrastructure in rural and underserved areas; (ii) improve the quality of health care services; and (iii) more awareness campaigns to promote maternal health.

  • Pursue efforts to promote women economic empowerment. Activities aiming at women’s empowerment could be reflected explicitly in the National Development Plan, which could promote: (i) agricultural and artisanal activities, especially in rural areas; and (ii) activities in the environment’s exploitation, conservation, and preservation. This would imply: (i) more decision making from women in these sectors; (ii) greater access to water; (iii) greater access to agricultural inputs; (iv) more vocational trainings that would help women, especially in rural areas, feel and be empowered (basic trainings such as sewing activities for women sanitary towels can go a long way); and (v) the implementation of various sustainable development strategies, a national environmental action plan, and the adoption of a national environmental policy. Those measures would support the participation of women in income generating activities aiming at removing women from subsistence activities and extreme poverty, regardless of their marital status.

  • Continue to promote at the national level, women in decision-making roles. Improving women’s representation in decision making calls for the continuing application of quotas, in addition to giving real opportunities to women to enter leadership positions. This requires more training and capacity-building programs for women interested in pursuing political careers and/or positions of leadership but also a stronger willingness within male leaders to delegate tasks to female colleagues and provide them with real work opportunities.

  • Organize awareness campaigns and strengthen implementation of the legal framework and diverse national strategies and programs. Reducing gender gaps in Chad is inevitably conditional on a strong and continuous engagement with traditional and community leaders to ensure: (i) more awareness of the importance of girls’ education, and as such, more sanctions to be taken in case of violations related to early marriages, genital mutilations and domestic violences, and (ii) more recognition of women leaders within those communities. Engagement with these leaders would support and ensure the implementation of existing national strategies and development partners’ various programs, in areas such as maternal health and the prevention of domestic violence. Preventive measures to avoid potential conflicts resulting from those changes in norms, such as a mediation mechanism at the community level, in close collaboration with traditional leaders and village chiefs could also help. Finally, strong interaction and communication with traditional leaders call for development partners to adapt their approach. For example, promoting women economic empowerment can be threatening and interpreted as a questioning of traditional values; hence, finding a way to communicate and convince traditional leaders requires diplomatic skills but also greater knowledge of those traditions and the context.

  • Establish a social registry to better target social transfers. A digital social protection system would be more effective at targeting the most vulnerable, i.e., often women in areas most vulnerable to climate change or in areas where a humanitarian crisis takes place (women refugees or in areas hosting refugees resulting from the Sudan crisis). This would imply the continuation and expansion of current initiatives aiming at the deployment of biometric IDs for all, which is an initiative already undertaken by partners such as UNICEF and UNHCR (particularly in refugees receiving areas) and digitally incorporate this data in the unique social registry, already set up by INSEED.

12. While the Chadian authorities have undertaken various initiatives and collaborations with international partners in these areas in recent years, much remains to be done, including in terms of effective implementation. Continuous efforts, collaboration with international organizations and NGOs, and strong commitment from the authorities, civil society, and especially from all the traditional and religious leaders across the country, are essential to advance toward gender parity.

References

  • Branisa, B., Klasen, S., and Ziegler, M. (2013). Gender Inequality in Social Institutions and Gendered Development Outcomes. World Development, Vol. 45, p. 252-268.

  • Caprioli, M. 2005. “Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict.” International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 49, pp. 161-78

  • Cihak, M. Sahay, R., 2020, “Finance and Inequality”, IMF Staff discussion Note SDN/20/01.

  • Field, Erica, and Attila Ambrus. 2008. Early marriage, age of menarche, and female schooling attainment in Bangladesh. Journal of Political Economy 116(5): 881-930.

  • Hakura, Dalia and Hussain, Mumtaz and Newiak, Monique and Thakoor, Vimal and Yang, Fan, Inequality, Gender Gaps and Economic Growth: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa (June 2016). IMF Working Paper No. 16/111, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2882524

  • Kazandijan, R., Kologich, L., Kochhar, K., Newiak, M., 2016, “Gender Equality and Economic Diversification” IMF Working Paper, WP/16/140.

  • Mitra, Pritha and Pondi Endengle, Eric M. and Pant, Malika and Almeida, Luiz F., Does Child Marriage Matter for Growth? (February 2020). IMF Working Paper No. 20/27, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3548438

  • Nguyen, M. C., and Q. Wodon (2017a). Impact of Child Marriage on Educational Attainment in Latin America and the Caribbean. Education Global Practice. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

  • Nguyen, M. C., and Q. Wodon (2017b). Estimating the Impact of Child Marriage on Literacy and Education Attainment in Africa. Education Global Practice. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

  • Nguyen, M. C., and Q. Wodon (2017c). Estimating the Impact of Child Marriage on Literacy and Education Attainment in South Asia. Education Global Practice. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

  • Ostry, J. D, Alvarez, J. A., Espinoza, R. A., Papageorgiou, C., 2018. “Economic Gains from Gender Inclusion: New Mechanisms, New Evidence” IMF Staff Discussion Note SDN/108/06.0

  • Ouedraogo, R., Stenzel, D., 2021. “The Heavy Economic Toll of Gender-based Violence: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa” IMF Working paper, WP/21/277

  • Sahay, R., Cihak, M. 2018. "Women in Finance: A Case for Closing Gaps," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2018/005, International Monetary Fund.

  • Wodon, Q., M. C. Nguyen, and C. Tsimpo. (2016). Child Marriage, Education, and Agency in Uganda, Feminist Economist, 22(1): 54-79.

1

Prepared by Arina Viseth (AFR).

2

It is also worth noting that many studies have found a negative impact of child marriage on educational attainment and literacy (Field and Ambrus, 2008; Nguyen and Wodon, 2015a; Nguyen and Wodon, 2015b; Wodon, Nguyen and Tsimpo 2015)

3

UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index (GII) is a composite metric of gender inequality using three dimensions:

4

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index measures gender inequality based on the relative gaps between women and men across 4 key areas: health, education, economy, and politics. It ranges from 0 to 100 and can be interpreted the percentage of the gender gap that has been closed.

5

Several questions were scored across eight indicators, which are mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, pensions. Overall scores are calculated by taking the average of each indicator, with 100 representing the highest possible score.

6

This index measures the gap between men and women at the highest level of political decision-making. It is assessed based on the ratios of women to men in ministerial positions, in parliamentary position, and in terms of years in executive office (prime minister or president) over the last 50 years. Differences between the participation of women and men at local levels of government are not yet captured.

7

The National Action Plan development process began in 2019 and built on proposals made by over 200 women leaders. It was drafted and validated by various ministries and stakeholders.

8

Including boarding schools.

Other IMF Content

Other Publishers

  • Collapse
  • Expand
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Chad: Selected Issues
Author:
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Volume/Issue:
Volume 2024: Issue 336
Publisher:
International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
9798400295249
ISSN:
1934-7685
Pages:
55
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400295249.002
  • <sup>Figure 1.</sup>
    View in gallery
    Figure 1.

    Chad: Gender Inequality Index Among Countries with Low Human Development, 2022

Figure 1.

Chad: Gender Inequality Index Among Countries with Low Human Development, 2022