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Female Labor Participation in the Arab World: Evidence from Panel Data in Morocco
Author(s) -
Verme Paolo,
Barry Abdoul Gadiry,
Guennouni Jamal
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/labr.12078
Subject(s) - endogeneity , panel data , per capita , economics , demographic economics , empirical evidence , work (physics) , estimator , development economics , econometrics , demography , sociology , statistics , population , mechanical engineering , philosophy , epistemology , engineering , mathematics
Female Participation Rates ( FPR s) in the Arab world are low compared with the level of economic development of Arab countries. Beyond anecdotal evidence and cross‐country studies, there is very little evidence on what could explain this phenomenon. This paper models FPR s in Morocco using the richest set of panel data available for any Arab country to date. It finds marriage, secondary education, and GDP per capita to lower FPR s. These findings are robust to different estimators, endogeneity tests, specifications of the FPR equations, and sources of data. The explanation seems to reside in the nature of economic growth and gender norms. Economic growth has not generated jobs for women with secondary education and this factor reinforces the institution of marriage as a permanent alternative to work.