Abstract

Africa is a continent which faces important inequalities between men and women. In this connection, this article aims to analyze the evolution process of gender income inequality, in the light of Kuznets’ theory of the inverted U curve. The analysis is undertaken from a panel data with the estimation of a reduced model first and then an extended model afterwards. The results suggest that income inequalities decrease at the beginning of the development process and increase later on when a country reaches an advanced stage in its development process, thus describing a U curve. This outcome constitutes a refutation of Kuznets’ hypothesis in the context of income inequalities geared to gender in Africa. The analysis also shows that gender inequalities in education, inequalities in the country and the poverty rate have a significant influence on gender income inequality. These different results have yielded implications for economical policy.

Key words: Gender, income distribution, development, Africa.