IMF-Gender and Business Cycles

April 4, 2024-This note reviews the literature on the complex relationship between gender and business cycles. It focuses on nuanced patterns that challenge the notion of gender neutrality in economic fluctuations.

The note also analyzes dimensions, such as unemployment, income risk, hours worked, and responses to monetary and fiscal policy shocks, and documents distinctive disparities.

For a long time, debt dynamics remained very benign. That’s because real interest rates were significantly below growth rates. This reduced the pressure for fiscal consolidation and allowed public deficits and public debt to drift upwards. Then, during the pandemic, debt increased even more as governments rolled out large emergency support packages.

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IMF World Economic Outlook -Global Economy in Flux, Prospects Remain Dim October 2025

October 14, 2025-- While the near-term forecast is revised up modestly, global growth remains subdued, as the newly introduced policies slowly come into focus
The global economy is adjusting to a landscape reshaped by new policy measures. Some extremes of higher tariffs were tempered, thanks to subsequent deals and resets. But the overall environment remains volatile, and temporary factors that supported activity in the first half of 2025-such as front-loading are fading.

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