Female labour force participation in subSaharan Africa: A cohort analysis

Arbeitspapier

Female labour force participation rates have stagnated in sub-Saharan Africa since the turn of the millennium. This paper aims to explain this aggregate pattern by decomposing it into the labour supply behaviour of different birth cohorts and age groups. Using representative and repeated census data from a heterogeneous sample of sub-Saharan African countries, we show that declining female labour supply at early working age is explained by increasing school attendance among young female cohorts. Taking this heterogeneity into account, we find a positive association between female labour force participation and female educational attainment across the working age. Female education is further positively related to female employment in the nonprimary sector. Early motherhood, in turn, is associated with lower female schooling and a widening gender gap in labour supply. The higher investments in education by younger female cohorts, together with the demographics of sub-Saharan African countries, have implications for a potentially arising 'demographic dividend'.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-92-9256-998-3
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WIDER Working Paper ; No. 2021/60

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Subject: labour supply ; gender ; sub-Saharan Africa ; demographic dividend

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Backhaus, Andreas ; Loichinger, Elke
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
• (where): Helsinki
• (when): 2021

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2021/998-3
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/243386
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET