Gender Discrimination, Education and Economic Growth in a Generalized Uzawa-Lucas Two-Sector Model

Abstract This paper is mainly concerned with relationships between economic growth and gender discrimination in labor markets and education. Although discrimination in different fields has well been addresses and modelled in the economic literature, there are only a few growth models with endogenous wealth and human capital accumulation, gender time distribution between work, leisure and education under gender (positive or negative) discrimination. The production and economic structures, human capital accumulation are based on the Uzawa-Lucas model, while the utility function and gender division of labor, leisure time and study time are based on the model by Zhang. The model takes account of learning by education in modeling human capital accumulation. We simulate the model to demonstrate the existence of equilibrium points and motion of the national economy. We also conduct a comparative dynamic analysis in regard to changes in discrimination in the education sector, women’s propensity to stay at home, women’s propensity to receive education, women’s knowledge utilization efficiency, and the propensity to save.