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The relationship between Economic Development and Gender inequalities has become one of the most debated issues in policy making and social
sciences. The relevant literature in this issue can be categorized in three
General approaches: Modernization - Neoc1assical, WID and GAD.
This paper assesses the issues by using cro_s - provinces data on women's
status and inequalities between men and women in Iran. For this purpose two
kinds of models, lie - linear and curvilinear were applied. The independent
variables are GDP per capita, the componenb of HDI and GEM. Two main
dependent variables arc status of women and Gender inequalities.
Our finding suggest that, there is a positive - linear relationship between
Economic Development and the status of women. but the curvilinear
relationship is not supported by our data. Furthermore, a weak negative linear
relationship exists. The results support the neoclassical and WID approaches. Nevertheless, our finding support the argument that partriarchal institutional
legacies undermine the status of women. Taking such legacies into
consideeration explains away the curvilinearity on the relationship between
levels of Economic Development and the Gender inequalities.