Gender-Imbalanced Well-Being: Impacts of Weak Democracy on Sustainable Futures

The generally accepted notion that democratization yields positive outcomes for well-being may not be correct for all societal groups within a country. And outcomes may not be equal across countries with different levels of development, especially in the current era of the weakening of democracy and the rise of autocracy. This research focuses on the effects of weak democracy on the well-being of one of the disfranchised groups—women, who typically have lower socioeconomic status than men in most societies. The situation of women has profound effects on the health, economics, educational achievement, and work opportunities of the next generation. Women, therefore, serve as an ideal marker for other disadvantaged groups when we consider the effects of weakening democracy and growing autocracy on well-being and countries’ sustainable futures.