Economic Development and Female Labor Participation in the Middle East and North Africa: A Test of the U-Shape Hypothesis

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is known for having low female labor market participation rates compared with its level of economic development. A possible explanation is that countries in this region do not follow a U-shape relation between female participation and GDP during the process of economic development as initially proposed by Goldin (Investment in Women's Human Capital and Economic Development 1995) and observed elsewhere. This paper tests the U-shape hypothesis for the MENA region and finds that the region has outperformed other world regions in terms of the main drivers of the hypothesis, but there is no clear evidence of a U-shape. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL codes: F66; J13; J16; J21.

Supporting opportunities for female entrepreneurs in Jordan

“…In his own words the explanation could be that "jobless growth and the lack of growth in employment sectors such as manufacturing and services, which proved critical for female employment in other countries, weaken labor demand and strengthen the role of institutions that may discourage female participation, such as marriage, legislation, and gender norms" (p. 1). Indeed, women in the MENA region seem to exit the labor force around the age of 25, which largely coincides with the average age for marriage in the region (GEM, 2009(GEM, , 2012The World Bank, 2005;Verme, 2014). In this case, accelerating entrepreneurship would help in shifting the role of women from job-seeker to selfemployed or even job-creators.…”

“…According to Verme (2014) these countries find themselves at the turning point of the U-shape hypothesis when countries transition from declining to rising female labor participation rates. In his own words the explanation could be that "jobless growth and the lack of growth in employment sectors such as manufacturing and services, which proved critical for female employment in other countries, weaken labor demand and strengthen the role of institutions that may discourage female participation, such as marriage, legislation, and gender norms" (p. 1).…”

Encouraging Female Entrepreneurship in Jordan: Environmental Factors, Obstacles and Challenges

“…Indeed, in such contexts women are faced with bigger challenges and barriers that can affect their intention to start and run a business (Al-Dajani & Marlow, 2010;GEM, 2009GEM, , 2012H. Hattab, 2012;Ramadani, Dana, Gërguri-Rashiti, & Abazi-Alili, 2015;Verme, 2014). Although those topics has been somehow studied, the novelty of our study is to systemically integrate our results with the existing theories of entrepreneurial intention (Icek Ajzen, 1991;Lüthje & Franke, 2004;Shapero & Sokol, 1982).…”

Islamism and gender relations in the Muslim world as reflected in recent World Values Survey data

“…Ever since Goldin (1995) proposed the idea that there is a U-shaped female labor force participation rate function in economic development, empirical research is stunned by the question why the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are characterized by such low international rates of female labor force participation (Gaddis and Klasen, 2014;Ganguli, Hausmann and Viarengo, 2014;Lechman and Kaur, 2015;Tsani, Paroussos, Fragiadakis, Charalambidis and Capros, 2015;Verme, 2015;Verme, Barry and Guennouni, 2014). The typical verdict of one of these recent empirical studies on the low female labor force participation rate in the MENA region was that the U-shape hypothesis per se does not provide clear leads on why female labor force participation rates in the MENA region are so low (Verme, Barry and Guennouni, 2014).…”