The writer is professor of the practice at Georgetown University and a former IMF deputy research director

In a speech last month, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen lamented the loss of economic potential across the globe from low female labour force participation. Meanwhile, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has called attention to the urgent need for childcare policies to attract women back into the workforce following the pandemic. And recent research has produced eye-catching estimates of the economic growth dividend from higher FLFP.

Those estimates, impressive as they are, nevertheless considerably understate the economic gains from higher FLFP. Economists approach the question of how gender inclusion affects economic wellbeing through a so-called headcount exercise: adding a woman to the labour force yields the same benefits as adding a man. A worker is a worker, and the gender of the worker is immaterial. What matters for economic growth is the total headcount.