Abstrakt
This paper aims to explore the relation between cultural values and gender based income inequality across nations. Contrary to traditional approaches in which men/women wage inequality is explained by gender related phenomena such as gender based differences in education, home duties, roles in child bearing, etc., I look at the relation with cultural values, which are not necessarily gender related, but which, according to some authors, are substantial for fluent functioning of society.
I find that there is the difference in the role cultural values play in more and less economically developed countries. In the case of rich countries, I find statistically significant relationship of cultural value estimates, as measured by Hofstede (2005) on one side and gender based income inequality estimates on the other side.
In the case of poor countries the relation did not prove to be significant. When using World Value Study estimates for values there is the difference not only in significance of the value estimates but also in sign of the relevant coefficients.