5: Towards global gender equality in education? Economic incentives, global cultures and international organizations’ policy recommendations

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This chapter analyses the impact of the global diffusion of equal pay laws (EPLs) on the relative enrolment rates of women in secondary education. First, we aim to explain the policy movement of EPLs and then the impact this movement had on countries’ female students. We contemplate international organizations as decisive actors since they set global normative standards regarding EPLs. They foster the idea of gender equality with an individualistic perspective on skill formation and human rights. We theorize this neoliberal discourse to influence the uptake and, crucially, the impact of EPLs across countries with widely differing economic, historical and cultural traits. We show in our mixed-methods study that: (1) equal pay of men and women is an important issue for the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in the context of education policy; (2) the worldwide diffusion of EPLs indicates an isomorphic trend, which is mediated by “cultural spheres”; and (3) that EPLs can provide incentives for girls to participate in secondary education, but the effect of EPLs on participation rates is also mediated by different “cultural spheres.” We thus consider policy movement as a phenomenon itself and simultaneously analyze the de facto outcomes of this specific policy movement.

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