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Gender disparities in labor force participation rates in selected developing countries, various years (2012-2017)
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... all three regions, conservative social attitudes continue to constrain options for women to work outside the home [4]. But even within regions where overall female labor force participation rates are low, there is considerable diversity (Figure 2). In South Asia, female participation rates range from under 30% in Pakistan and India to almost 80% in Nepal. ...
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... all three regions, conservative social attitudes continue to constrain options for women to work outside the home [4]. But even within regions where overall female labor force participation rates are low, there is considerable diversity (Figure 2). In South Asia, female participation rates range from under 30% in Pakistan and India to almost 80% in Nepal. ...
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... Esta segregación ocupacional es una dinámica que todavía persiste en el mercado laboral. Por todo ello, se deduce que la participación y el desempleo de las mujeres es el resultado no solo de dinámicas dependientes de comportamientos individuales, sino de que, en el análisis del desempleo de la mujer, hay que considerar la interacción de diversos factores tanto económicos como geográficos y especialmente sociales que presentan rasgos diferenciales al caso de los hombres (Lewandowska-Gwarda, 2018;Verick, 2018). ...
... La participación laboral femenina está influenciada por factores económicos y sociales, como el capital social adquirido, el nivel educativo, los ingresos del hogar y las normas sociales (Verick, 2018). Además de estos condicionantes, el elemento residencial presenta una barrera adicional a los ya significativos desafíos que enfrentan las mujeres para salir del desempleo. ...
Esta tesis doctoral, presentada en modalidad de compendio de publicaciones, analiza el desempleo en Andalucía con un enfoque específico en las brechas de género del mercado laboral. La investigación se basa en la explotación estadística de datos abiertos desagregados a nivel municipal y en metodologías propias de las Ciencias de Datos Espaciales para examinar las distintas brechas de género en el desempleo andaluz. Además, incorpora estudios complementarios que fortalecen los ensayos principales de la tesis, ya sea en el marco teórico, en la construcción de indicadores o en la integración espacial de las publicaciones.
La principal innovación de esta tesis radica en la inclusión del espacio geográfico como variable explicativa, lo que permite identificar patrones de autocorrelación espacial y clústeres de polarización territorial en los indicadores municipales de empleo, desempleo y brechas de género. Mediante el uso de técnicas propias del Análisis Exploratorio de Datos Espaciales (ESDA) y variables georreferenciadas de empleo y desempleo, la investigación logra captar dinámicas socioeconómicas de polarización territorial y estructuras subyacentes de dependencia espacial que no pueden ser detectadas mediante las explotaciones de datos y metodologías estadísticas convencionales aplicadas al desempleo.
Desde una perspectiva conceptual y dentro del marco teórico, la tesis adopta un enfoque estructural y territorial que sitúa el desempleo en Andalucía en un contexto sociohistórico marcado por su posición periférica dentro de la economía del Sistema Mundo y la sobrerrepresentación de las mujeres en el precariado actual, característico de economías dependientes y segmentadas.
El compendio incluye cuatro ensayos principales que examinan diversas dimensiones de la brecha de género: la feminización del colectivo de Trabajadoras Eventuales Agrícolas Subsidiadas (TEAS), la polarización territorial del desempleo femenino, las desigualdades en el desempleo de larga duración y la sobrerrepresentación de mujeres en el empleo a tiempo parcial, particularmente en áreas rurales. Estos estudios, junto con investigaciones complementarias, se integran espacialmente mediante técnicas de ESDA, revelando patrones subyacentes en los municipios y Áreas Territoriales de Empleo de Andalucía, incluidos clústeres territoriales, polarización y dependencia espaciotemporal en los indicadores analizados.
La tesis concluye con un capítulo de síntesis que recopila los hallazgos más relevantes, destaca las implicaciones prácticas para las políticas de empleo derivadas del uso de datos abiertos y de enfoques contemporáneos de gobierno abierto y basado en evidencias, y propone futuras líneas de investigación orientadas a diseñar acciones públicas que profundicen en el análisis de las desigualdades laborales, de género y territoriales en el desempleo andaluz. Finalmente, se señalan las limitaciones de la investigación, principalmente relacionadas con su marcada orientación inductiva y el predominante uso de un tratamiento estadístico univariante.
... However, other factors encourage women to work, such as higher education. In micro terms, women's participation in the labor market can help families escape poverty by increasing household income (Verick, 2018). In addition, women's labor force participation can be an effort to improve gender equality in the world of work (Shirazi, 2012). ...
This study analyses the factors of working women in a sandwich generation to decide to work in the non-agricultural sector in East Java Province, Indonesia. The sandwich generation is identical to economic dependents on two families simultaneously: biological children and parents. As a sandwich generation, encouraging women to work develops their careers and for the welfare of their families. The sandwich generation phenomenon has occurred in several countries, including in every region in Indonesia. Many factors, especially structural poverty and economic conditions, can cause sandwich generation. This study uses logistic regression analysis of 2022 National Socioeconomic Data. The research results show that the characteristics of women participating in the non-agricultural sector can be caused by living conditions, education level, digital conditions, and the guarantee of protection from the government.
... This unpaid care work is a major constraint on women's participation in the labor market and contributes to a host of gender-unequal social and economic outcomes (Connelly & Kongar, 2017;Samtleben & Müller, 2022). Gender gaps in unpaid care work -and employment -are largest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Gottlieb et al., 2024;International Labour Organization, 2018;Rubiano-Matulevich & Viollaz, 2019;Verick, 2018). For instance, the ratio of women's to men's unpaid care work is nearly five to one in Egypt (Atallah & Hesham, 2024). ...
Women spend a disproportionate amount of time in unpaid care work compared to men. There are particularly large gender disparities in care work in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, such as Egypt. This paper explores how policies might help shift care work into the market, specifically through the education system. The research examines the impact of early childhood care and education (ECCE) on mother's time use. The paper uses the school age cutoff (in a regression discontinuity design framework) for enrollment in primary school to assess the impact of children starting primary school on mother's time use. Primary school enrollment does not significantly change the time mothers spend in care work or employment. There is some evidence that children's primary school enrollment shifts when and possibly what types of care work mothers engage in. Policies increasing access to ECCE are not guaranteed to shift care work or employment for mothers.
... Furthermore, female labor force involvement reduces poverty as household income and consumption of goods and services expand (Galperin et al., 2022;Lersch, 2017;Verick, 2018). ...
... In addition to highly educated women, the availability of the Internet creates new jobs even for less-educated women. However, in developing and emerging countries, it is essential to consider not only the working status of women but also the nature of the job they can approach (Nikulin, 2017;Verick, 2018). Studies in Indonesia find that internet availability enhances the likelihood of women having a full-time job, particularly for low-educated women (Kusumawardhani et al., 2021), and internet-based mobile phone applications allow them to offer cleaning or taxi services (Suseno, 2018) and engage in online commerce (Das et al., 2017). ...
... ICT opens new employment opportunities that are more favorable to women, such as jobs that are not physically demanding or jobs that can be done remotely. In developing countries, these jobs come mainly from export-oriented manufacturing, especially outsourcing (Hjort & Poulsen, 2019;Valberg, 2020;Verick, 2018). In a study of 98 countries, Clarke and Wallsten (2006) finds that developing countries tended to export more to developed countries as internet access increased. ...
This paper examines the impact of ICT development on female labor market outcomes across Vietnam, using data from four waves of the nationally-representative Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys conducted in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. Leveraging the variation in the degree of ICT development among provinces as a source of exogenous variation, we employ fixed effects models. Our findings provide evidence that ICT improves the chances of obtaining contracted jobs for married women, particularly those who are low-educated, belong to minor ethnic groups, and are relatively older individuals aged 40 to 55. The rise in contract jobs for these groups suggests that ICT development has improved the local labor market and enhanced the job-matching process for vulnerable women in Vietnam. Additionally, we explore the well-being of households led by married women in contractual employment, revealing a positive correlation between the ICT development and average daily caloric intake per capita in such households. Our pathway emphasizes the synergy of ICT deployment, expanded contractual opportunities, and improved caloric intake. Furthermore, the results indicate a reduction in working hours for married women in contractual positions as a result of ICT development, suggesting ICT’s role in enhancing time management and work efficiency, thereby positively impacting household well-being.
... Population density quantifies urban concentration within the country. The unemployment rate reflects the national business cycle, while the FLFP signifies differences in economic growth, social norms, educational attainment, fertility rates, and availability of childcare and other support services among countries (Verick, 2018). Johnson (2014) found that in the US, there exists a positive relationship between real house prices and labour force participation-high-priced housing markets are associated with higher labour force participation, and Salari and Javid (2019) reported that a 10% increase in FLFP leads to roughly a 12.5% increase in housing values, based on state-level data in the US from 2005 to 2013. ...
This study investigates the static and dynamic effects of legal reforms facilitating divorce on housing prices. Multiple mechanisms, such as variations in housing demand and supply, can be influenced by these law reforms. On the one hand, divorced individuals often require separate dwellings, thus increasing housing demand. On the other hand, an increase in supply is often precipitated by the divorcées needing to sell their married home. Detailed information was collected regarding the historical changes in divorce laws across ten European countries from 1960 to 2008. This data was combined with information from the annual Real House Price Index developed by Knoll et al. (Am Econ Rev 107:331–353, 2017). The study regards the divorce law reforms as providing a quasi-experimental setting. This is primarily because the entry timings of these reforms differ across countries and their target is not regulation of the housing market, but rather to simplify the dissolution of marriages. The study finds that divorce law reforms accounted for a substantial 22% of the average interannual increment in the Real House Price Index, particularly 3–6 years post reforms. Such a short-term, yet significant, impact was found to be consistent even after performing identification checks and including time-variant and invariant controls.
... In Ghana, female labour force participation rate is on a downward trend, declining from 76% in 1990 to 65% in 2021 (International Labour Organisation 2023), whereas female-to-male labour participation ratio declined from 97% in 1990to 90% in 2021(World Bank, 2023. While the U-hypothesis is insightful, it does not address how socioeconomic factors, institutional factors, and micro dynamics are important for women's labour force participation and labour market transitions at the micro-level (Gaddis and Klasen 2014;Verick 2018;Klasen et al. 2021). ...
Labour market transitions, particularly those that allow the reallocation of labour from unpaid household production to the market, are crucial for development and structural change. However this area remains largely unexplored in the empirical literature on developing countries. To help address this gap, this study investigates the patterns and trends in labour market transitions as well as the key correlates of these transitions in Ghana using three waves of household panel data spanning a period of 10 years. Using the positive labour mobility index and several econometric techniques, we found that the pattern of household labour allocation and labour market transitions by individuals into income-earning activities remained gendered within the period studied. We found a limited tendency to move out of unpaid housework, an area dominated by females, into sectors of work other than farming. While females in unpaid housework could only move into farming, those in farming were able to move into the household nonfarm sector. These results characterize the trajectory of labour market transitions for women in relation to men in Ghana. Our findings on other key correlates of these transitions largely suggest that intra-household allocation of labour and labour market transitions by individuals may be strongly influenced by gender norms, power relations, and control over household productive resources. This study highlights the implications of these findings.
... For several decades, the issue of women's economic participation has been at the heart of the concerns of governments and international bodies, due to its impact on increasing economic growth (Pimkina and De la Flor, 2020) and reducing poverty and inequality (Verick, 2018). Indeed, between 1970 and1990, several attempts were made to improve issues related to women's economic participation, and this period is known as the "pioneering" period. ...
This article examines the link between the digital divide and women's economic participation. We use a cross-sectional model based on a panel of 45 African countries. Our results show that the digital divide (cell phone, bandwidth and Internet) worsens women's economic participation. The negative influence of the digital divide on women's economic participation tends to be amplified in countries with low democracy and in the industrial sector. Our results remain stable when we add cultural variables and when we use the alternative measure of the digital divide. However, after using the quantile regression approach, we find that these influences vary at different intervals along the distribution of women's economic participation. JEL classification: I21, J21, O55
... 2,3,4 However, women's participation in labour force is increasing globally as need to support household income continues to rise. 5,6 However, this places higher demand on nursing mothers and predisposes them to stress especially in low and middle-income nations like Nigeria where infrastructures are not highly conducive to provide adequate care for infants during work hours. Maternal psychological distress is also related to nonoptimal breastfeeding outcomes. ...
Background: Stress limits maternal breastfeeding ability and the efficacy of its coping strategies is reflected in optimal child nutrition. This study evaluated stress, its coping strategies and its relationship with breastfeeding practices. Method: A cross-sectional study among 200 randomly selected working-class nursing mothers visiting University College Hospital in Ibadan. An international stress management questionnaire with a Zimet 12-item perceived social support scale was employed to measure stress and its coping strategies (categorized into problem-focused, emotion-focused and social support strategies). socio-demographic factors and breastfeeding practices were determined by a structured questionnaire. Breastfeeding practices were categorized into optimal and suboptimal practices based on a mean score of
... MENA had the highest female-to-male ratio of time spent on unpaid care work of any region prior to the pandemic (International Labour Organization 2018). The region also had the world's lowest rates of female labour force participation pre-pandemic (Verick 2018). Even prior to COVID-19, difficulties reconciling care work and employment led women in MENA to frequently leave employment at marriage (Assaad, Krafft, and Selwaness 2022;Selwaness and Krafft 2021). ...
... The pandemic appears to have neither helped nor hurt women's employment, which remains persistently low in the region Verick 2018). Promoting women's employment is an ongoing challenge, and one where care responsibilities may constrain women's employment, leading them to frequently leave employment, particularly in the private sector, at and in anticipation of marriage (Assaad, Krafft, and Selwaness 2022). ...
... By increasing household incomes and boosting consumption of products and services, women labour can help families escape poverty. Women's abilities often increase as nations grow, social restrictions loosen and allow women to work outside the home (Verick 2018). ...
The effect of the female labour force participation rate on urbanization, which is the question of reverse causality, was not investigated in the earlier literature despite the widespread belief that urbanization leads to modernization and social transformation. The paper used World Bank data from 217 countries from 1991 to 2022 to address this issue. The Random Effect (RE) Two-Stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis suggests that urbanization has a detrimental effect on the ratio of female to male labour force participation. On the other hand, the proportion of women to men participating in the labour force positively influences urbanization. The GDP growth rate and the proportion of female employers favourably influence the participation rate of women in the labour force. However, the estimated results do not support the idea that long-term economic growth and the percentage of women in the labour force follow a U-shaped pattern. The results do not support a U-shaped association between the female labour force participation rate and urbanization. However, a causal and long-term stable association exists between female labour force participation rate and urbanization. Finally, we suggest several policies that will benefit women's labour force participation rate during the process of economic growth.