Empowerment or Indoctrination? Female Training Programs under Dictatorship

In Latin America, despite an apparent convergence on the relation between female labor force participation (FLFP) and total fertility rates (TFR), there are differences between and within countries that must be considered. This paper aimed to understand the heterogeneity in the relation between the FLFP rate and the TFR in Latin American from 1990 to 2018 in order to identify cross-country patterns. Using World Bank data for the 20 countries in Latin America, clustering longitudinal data was performed, and mixed-effect models were fitted to quantify the heterogeneity. Three patterns of relationship were observed in Latin American countries: low TFR and intermediate FLFP, high TFR and high FLFP, and high TFR and low FLFP. The heterogeneity identified suggests the diversity of socio-economic and cultural factors influences the dynamics of the relation between FLFP and TFR in Latin America.

Low female labor force participation is a critical global issue, and the global agenda is achieving sustainable development. This study explores the impact of female labor force participation on economic, social, and environmental development, which are the three main pillars of sustainable development. To measure these pillars, the study uses indicators such as per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita. The primary variable of interest is the female labor force participation rate (FLFPR), with additional variables including total population (POP), per capita energy consumption (ENG), and the male labor force participation rate (MLFPR), which serve as both study and control variables. The research is conducted using data from a global panel of 118 countries spanning from 1990 to 2019. To effectively handle cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity, second-generation panel data methods are employed. The Driscoll-Kraay robust standard error regression is utilized to estimate both the linear and nonlinear effects of female labor force participation on economic, social, and environmental development. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality test is applied to identify short-run causal relationships among the study variables. Empirical findings indicate that an increase in female labor force participation leads to enhancements in per capita GDP and HDI while contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions globally. The relationship between female labor force participation and per capita GDP is found to be U-shaped, whereas its relationship with HDI and CO2 emissions is inverse U-shaped. These results underscore that higher female labor force participation significantly boosts economic, social, and environmental development worldwide, highlighting the importance for policymakers to foster sustainable development by maximizing the advantages of female labor force participation on a global scale.

I develop a model with status concerns to analyze how different economic factors affect female labor participation and welfare, as well as average household incomes and wages. Reductions in the price of domestic goods and increases in female wages have positive effects on female participation. Increases in male wages have different effects on female participation depending on whether they affect female wages or not. Events that lead to increases in female participation are usually associated with decreases in the welfare of stay-at-home wives but are not necessarily associated with increases in welfare of working wives. Allowing for part-time work can lead to an increase in overall female labor force participation, but some women that would have worked full-time end up working part-time. If female wages are endogenous, an increase in male wages leads to an increase in the female participation rate even if it is not associated with a decrease in the gender wage gap. The positive feedback of increased female participation on their wages can lead to hysteresis of dual equilibria of high and low female labor force participation and a discontinuous transition between these equilibria.

This study innovatively investigates the impact of female labor share on trade-related embodied carbon based on the idea of ecofeminism. Regression results show that an increase in the female labor share contributes to a reduction in emissions embodied in trade, and that this effect is more significant after the control variables, education level and female political participation, are included. More specifically, in developed countries, higher female labor force participation would reduce the embodied carbon related to imports and exports only in the service sector. However, in developing countries, increases in female labor force participation are conducive to reducing the embodied carbon of exports and imports in the service and industrial sectors, respectively. This study provides new evidence for policy makers to reduce trade-related emissions embodied in trade by encouraging female employment.

The conclusion of this study is that structures of collective social protection and changes in rates of female labor force participation influence cohort relative economic status and thus specify the effect of relative cohort on swings in fertility. Both income potential (affected by entering cohort size) and expected standard of living (affected by previous cohort size) are determined by cohort size. A large youth cohort relative to the parental cohort results in low income and low fertility. The Easterlin thesis that relative cohort size (the ratio of persons aged 30-64 years to persons aged 15-29 years) corresponds to shifts in fertility is supported for the period 1950-80 in the US. Replications of this thesis in Europe were unsuccessful. This study indicates that relative cohort size affects fertility depending on the country and the time period. This study examines 18 high-income countries during 1951-86. Measures of stable institutional characteristics of welfare states which may affect the relationship between relative cohort size and fertility include female labor force participation social security spending consensus democracy (Lijpharts five component scale) corporatism (Pampel Williamson and Stryker) total years of leftist rule commitment to egalitarian social policies (Esping-Andersons index of decommodification) and governability (Schmitter). Principal components factor analysis ordinary least squares (fixed-effects and generalized) models and multivariate analysis are constructed or performed. All mediating influences on fertility are not accounted for. Heterogeneity autocorrelation heteroscedasticity and contemporaneous correlation of residuals are controlled for. Relative cohort size which is lagged two years to allow for the gap between fertility desires and births modestly affects average fertility among 18 countries and at 38 time points. Relative cohort size has weak effects in Europe and in countries with high collectivism scores. High female labor force participation depresses the effect of relative cohort size. Relative cohort size has the strongest effects in the US Canada Ireland and the Netherlands. Effects in Germany Switzerland and Sweden are negligible or negative. The generalized least squares pooled model provides more accurate estimates. Social and institutional characteristics of nations affect the influence of relative cohort size on fertility.

Purpose The under-5 mortality rate in Nepal remains high in comparison to neighboring countries and developed nations. The result of this problem on Nepal’s social, economic, political and cultural development makes it an urgent priority requiring the Nepalese Government to address this issue. The purpose of this paper is to find out if Nepal’s high female labor force participation (FLFP), the caste system and no paid maternity leave are contributing factors to under-5 deaths in Nepal. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study were taken from Nepal’s cross-sectional demographic health survey 2016–2017. The study sample included 5,060 children born to 3,074 mothers in the five years preceding the survey. Data were collected by interviewing respondents via a structured questionnaire selected through stratified random sampling methods. Findings The study found that the hazard ratio for FLFP, the caste of the mother and paid maternity were 1.145, 1.485 and 0.556, respectively, with a p-value <0.001. Therefore, the risk of death in children under-5 years for a working mother, a Terai caste mother and a mother who did not get paid maternity was 14, 45 and 48 percent, respectively, higher than for non-working mothers, mothers from other castes and mothers who got paid maternity. Originality/value This research demonstrated that FLFP, the caste of the mother and paid maternity leave are important factors for determining the risk of death in children under the age of 5.

This paper focuses on the relations between development and gender disparities in labor market outcomes in the era of globalization. Within a cross-national comparative framework, the article examines the relations between development and globalization and three aspects of gender-linked disparities (women's labor force participation, gender occupational differentiation, and gender pay gap) at two time points: 1990 and 2015. The data reveal patterns in the relationship between development, globalization, and each dimension of gender inequality. First, development but not globalization tends to increase women's labor force participation. Second, development is likely to reduce gender occupational segregation. But the effect is indirect; it is transmitted via the increased number of economically active women. Third, less gender occupational segregation does not necessarily mean greater occupational equality; high female labor force participation is likely to reduce women's likelihood of employment in high-status professional and managerial occupations. Fourth, gender occupational inequality appears to be one of the sources of a country's gender pay gap; the pay disparity between men and women tends to be greater in countries where gender occupational inequality is high. A model that summarizes the complex relations among development, globalization, and the various dimensions of gender-linked economic activity and inequality is proposed and discussed.

Income inequality in Canada has not changed significantly over the past two decades, though this apparent stability may be surprising in view of the major economic and social changes that occurred over this period. The share of income going to the bottom quintile remains at about four percent while the top quintile continues to receive about 40 percent of income.Social trends such as lower fertility rates have coincided with increased female labour force participation to increase family incomes in the middle and upper‐middle parts of the income spectrum. At the same time, the trend for baby boom children to establish their own separate households, and increased divorce and separation rates, have tended to create more small family units with low incomes. These social trends, in isolation of other factors, would have increased income inequality.However, economic factors have apparently offset these tendencies. Since employment income is concentrated in the middle and upper‐middle ranges, the relative fall in this source of income over the past two decades tended to be equalizing. Similarly, the fact that a large part of total investment income accrues to the elderly who have below average income implies that the trend towards high interest rates has been equalizing. Finally, the social “safety nets” put in place in the mid‐1960s and early 1970s have grown in relative importance, and this too has had an equalizing impact on the distribution of income.Given the overall stability in income inequality, the equalizing tendencies of economic factors such as high interest rates and relatively slow economic growth, with the large automatic responsiveness of governments' social safety net programs, appear to have just about exactly offset the disequalizing social factors of “baby boomers” leaving home, lower fertility, higher divorce and separation rates, and higher female labour force participation.

In this article I focus on women's advancement in the Swedish labour market during more than a century. By applying a long-term perspective I give the historical background to what is commonly seen as a success story. By reassessing census and labour force survey data I show that participation rates may tell a misleading tale not only for the past but also for the present. In a long-term perspective, Sweden does not stand out as a country with high female labour force participation rates. It was not until the mid-1960s that market work came to play a larger part of women's life, since young women worked until they had children and older married women returned to the labour force after having raised a family. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, women with children under the age of seven became an integrated part of the labour force. It seemed as if welfare reforms supported women's market work in an unprecedented way; gender differences in labour force participation decreased and became very small. A reassessment of labour force participation rates together with alternative measures of market work such as at-work and market-hours rates show that similarly to how they underestimate women's market work and contributions to production during the early decades of the twentieth century, they overestimate women's market work at the end of the century, neglecting the extent to which reproductive responsibilities still interfere with women's paid work through absence and part-time work.

Over the past decades there has been an enormous increase in the labor force participation of married women. Whereas overall participation rates in Germany have been falling due to a reduction in life time work (later entry into the labor force as well as earlier retirement), married women’s participation rates for age 25 to 50 have almost doubled from the 1960s up to the 1990s, going from 37% to 70% (Franz 1996 and Statistisches Bundesamt 1997). Over this same period divorce rates have continuously increased as well. The probability of divorce in 25 years of marriage has doubled from 15% for a couple that married in 1960 to 30% for a marriage entered in 1980 (Statistisches Bundesamt 1990). Whether the increasing risk of divorce is caused by higher female labor force participation, as many studies suggest, or whether married women now supply more labor due to the higher risk of divorce, as other studies argue (see for instance Diekmann (1994)), the decision to work certainly involves an aspect of insurance that has been missed by traditional models of household labor supply. It is this insurance aspect that will be incorporated in the theoretical modeling and econometric estimation of female labor supply in the present chapter.KeywordsHuman CapitalLabor SupplyLabor Force ParticipationBargaining PowerHuman Capital InvestmentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In contrast to the results in Mayer and Riphahn (2000) where no distinction is made between the causes of economic as well as political immigrants, this article shows that compared to native Taiwanese, the parental refugee experience results in a lower completed fertility of the children's family partly through inducing a higher female labor force participation (FLFP) of the second-generation immigrant family. In addition, the likelihood of a wife participating in the market sector increases with the number of political immigrant parents and in-laws, supporting the psychological conjecture generated from Borjas (1982) and Brenner and Kiefer (1981) in which completed fertility falls with the refugee experience shared with a couple's parents and in-laws.

Background: Extant research on intergenerational domestic time transfers rarely includes Estonia. This, combined with distinct socio-structural features relevant to such transfers – a post-communist welfare regime, high female labor force participation, and high levels of gender inequality in domestic and care work – makes Estonia a very interesting study setting. Objective: I examine gendered intergenerational time transfers in Estonia and their (dis)similarity to patterns found in France and Italy. Methods: I draw on Estonian Time Use Survey (ETUS) data from the most recent edition (2009–2010) and estimate OLS regression models with clustered standard errors separately for men and women. (NS1 = 772 person days; NS2 = 1,348 person days; NS3 = 2,481 person days). Results: Intergenerational time transfers follow a downward pattern, from parents to adult children, and are mostly maintained through mothers’ high absolute and relative contribution to housework. The participation in domestic tasks of young adults coresiding with parents is also strongly gendered and is mainly related to time availability. Young men and women outside the parental home generally incur time costs, except for single young women, but gender inequality persists across life-course stages. Conclusions: Intergenerational time transfers in Estonia resemble those in Italy more than those in France: there is a marked gender asymmetry, yet not of the same magnitude and with a unique life-course dynamic. Consistent with multi-dimensional gender differentiation, most family arrangements are time-intensive for women. Contribution: This is the first study to empirically illustrate gendered intergenerational time transfers in Estonia, underscoring that intergenerational time exchanges are gendered in context-specific ways.

For a sample of Central and Eastern European countries, characterized by historically high female labor force participation and currently low fertility rates, we analyze whether fathers' increased involvement in the family (housework and childcare) has the potential of increasing both fertility and maternal employment. Using two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that more paternal involvement in the family increases the likelihood that the mother will have a second child and work full-time. Men's fertility and work decisions are instead unrelated to mothers' housework and childcare. We also show that fathers' involvement in housework plays a more important role than involvement in childcare. The role of fathers' involvement in housework is confirmed when we consider women who initially wanted or intended to have a child, whose partner also wanted a child, or who intended to continue working.

The Nordic childcare policy model is often reviewed and even recommended internationally for its contribution to gender equality, high female labour force participation and, perhaps more indirectly, to a high fertility rate. Nordic childcare services and parental leave schemes have thus been portrayed in the literature as policies which have managed to facilitate a work–family model of dual earners and dual carers. However, the recent introduction of cash‐for‐care schemes seems to go against the Nordic dual earner/dual carer model and ideals of gender equality, in supporting parental (maternal) care of the child in the home. At the same time, new upcoming trends of political fatherhood and the perspective of lifelong learning for the child are also changing the Nordic childcare model.This article provides an analysis of how new childcare policy goals have been articulated into policies from the late 1990s to the late 2000s and how these may challenge the traditional goals of the Nordic welfare states.

Japan is aging and has the highest government debt‐to‐output ratio among advanced economies. In this article, we build a micro data‐based, large‐scale overlapping generations model for Japan in which individuals differ in age, gender, employment type, income, and asset holdings, and incorporate the Japanese pension rules. Using existing pension law, current fiscal policy, and medium variants of demographic projections, we produce future paths for government expenditures and tax revenues, with implications for government debt and the public pension fund. Additional pension reform, a higher consumption tax, and higher female labor force participation help achieve fiscal stability.