Globaliation and Female Labor Force Participation : The case of Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: Female labor force participation is an essential factor for the economic andsocio-economic development of nations. Closing gender gaps on the Africanlabor market is thus not just a fairness issue, it is good economics. This thesisuses panel data of 35 Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the period 1995-to2019, to analyse the nexus between globalization and female labor forceparticipation (FLFP). The investigation is done at the level of the economy asa whole, and then across three economic sectors; agriculture, manufacturingand service. To depart from existing literature, FLFP is operationalized in thisstudy as relative (to males) labor force participation and relative employmentacross sectors. The empirical evidence provided is based on fixed effectregressions, which provide close to zero effects systematically. These resultsprove a weak relationship suggesting a weak correlation between allglobalization dynamics and FLFP in Sub-Saharan Africa. These findings arebroadly consistent with the minority strand of the literature supporting theinsignificance and/or negative insignificance of globalization on FLFP andrelative employment outcomes. It thus brings a new perspective to theliterature, wherein positive effects have been found on the relationshipbetween globalization and FLFP.. I try to argue the possible reasons for these findings. Policy implications arediscussed with an emphasis on how to promote women’s participation on thelabor market. Particularly, feasible policies which could absorb women intothe formal economic sectors.