in the majority of countries monetary policies are focused almost exclusively on meeting very low inflation targets attained by raising interest rates to keep prices from increasing more rapidly high interest rates slow economic activity by making credit more expensive and less accessible thus reducing consumer purchases and raising the cost of financing productive investments all of these factors lower demand for labour recent research has shown that womens employment has declined faster than mens in a range of developing countries including brazil colombia costa rica the philippines and the republic of korea that are experiencing reductions in inflation associated with restrictive monetary policy in countries that maintain a less restrictive monetary environment such gender inequalities are less evident