Analyzing Female Employment Trends in South Asia
This paper studies employment patterns and trends in South Asia to shed light on determinants of extremely low female employment rates in the region. After a comprehensive literature review, the authors use employment data from about one hundred ce...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/913671582139622518/Analyzing-Female-Employment-Trends-in-South-Asia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33362 |
| Summary: | This paper studies employment patterns
and trends in South Asia to shed light on determinants of
extremely low female employment rates in the region. After a
comprehensive literature review, the authors use employment
data from about one hundred censuses and surveys from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and
Sri Lanka to compare employment trends across countries over
time. They work through data inconsistencies to standardize
definitions of variables to compare demographic and labor
market determinants: age, sector, contract type, location,
and education. The paper finds that (i) overall since 2001,
women's employment participation across South Asian
countries has been low and broadly unchanged; (ii) the
gender employment gap emerges more clearly in middle age
brackets; (iii) rural female employment is higher than
urban; (iv) agriculture is the economic sector accounting
for the greatest share of female employment, although this
is slowly changing in some countries, and; (v) women with
mid-level education tend to have lower employment rates than
those with both lower and higher education. |
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