Economic Growth and Female Labor Force Participation – Verifying the U-Feminization Hypothesis. New Evidence for 162 Countries Over the Period 1990-2012

Abstract

The paper contributes by providing new insights into relationship between female labor force and economic growth in 162 world countries over the period 1990-2012. It is anticipated uncovering U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and economic growth. The analysis is run in two different perspectives – first the relationship is examined for sample encompassing 162 countries; and second – the evidence is disaggregated and the relationship is re-examined in four income-groups (low-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income and high-income). To this aims data on female labor force participation and per capita income are used, from the World Development Indicators 2013 database, and examine the relationship by deploying panel data analysis assuming non-linearity between variables. The main findings support the hypothesis on U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and economic growth, however high cross-country variability on the field is reported. Moreover, only in case of low-income countries, the U-shaped feminization hypothesis was not positively verified.

Keywords: women, female labor force, feminization, U-shaped curve, economic growth

JEL Classification: J21, O10, O50