IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp10455.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Disparities in Employment and Earnings in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Swaziland

Author

Listed:
  • Brixiova, Zuzana

    (UNECA)

  • Kangoye, Thierry

    (African Development Bank)

Abstract

In this paper we provide first systematic evidence on the gender disparities in the labor market in Swaziland, drawing on the country's first two (2007 and 2010) Labor Force Surveys. We find that even though the global financial crisis had a less severe effect on the labor market outcomes of women than those of men, women continue to have lower employment and labor force participation rates. Utilizing the Heckman probit selection model shows that while women account for a disproportionate share of the self-employed, they are more often than men involved in low-productivity activities and rely less on formal finance. We conclude with policies that could help Swaziland – and other middle income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – narrow these disparities and embark on a more inclusive growth path.

Suggested Citation

  • Brixiova, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry, 2016. "Gender Disparities in Employment and Earnings in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Swaziland," IZA Discussion Papers 10455, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10455
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp10455.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brixiová, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry, 2016. "Gender and constraints to entrepreneurship in Africa: New evidence from Swaziland," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 1-8.
    2. Aterido, Reyes & Beck, Thorsten & Iacovone, Leonardo, 2013. "Access to Finance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is There a Gender Gap?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 102-120.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    4. Lee, Neil & Sameen, Hiba & Cowling, Marc, 2015. "Access to finance for innovative SMEs since the financial crisis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 370-380.
    5. Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Terrell, Katherine, 2008. "Does Gender Matter for Firm Performance? Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia," IZA Discussion Papers 3758, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Miguel Ángel Malo & Dario Sciulli (ed.), 2014. "Disadvantaged Workers," AIEL Series in Labour Economics, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-319-04376-0, June.
    7. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    8. Ms. Dalia S Hakura & Mr. Mumtaz Hussain & Ms. Monique Newiak & Mr. Vimal V Thakoor & Mr. Fan Yang, 2016. "Inequality, Gender Gaps and Economic Growth: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 2016/111, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Léonce Ndikumana & Mina Baliamoune-Lutz & Zuzana Brixiová, 2011. "Credit Constraints And Productive Entrepreneurship In Africa," Working Papers wp276, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    10. Esther Duflo, 2012. "Women Empowerment and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1051-1079, December.
    11. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    12. Cho, Yoonyoung & Newhouse, David, 2013. "How Did the Great Recession Affect Different Types of Workers? Evidence from 17 Middle-Income Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-50.
    13. Brixiova, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry, 2016. "Start-Up Capital and Women's Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Swaziland," IZA Discussion Papers 10279, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Stein Kristiansen, 2004. "Social Networks and Business Success," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(5), pages 1149-1171, November.
    15. Gert Wehinger, 2014. "SMEs and the credit crunch: Current financing difficulties, policy measures and a review of literature," OECD Journal: Financial Market Trends, OECD Publishing, vol. 2013(2), pages 115-148.
    16. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz & Zuzana Brixiov?? & L??once Ndikumana, 2011. "Credit Constraints & Productive Entrepreneurship in Africa," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1025, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    17. Elizabeth Asiedu & Isaac Kalonda-Kanyama & Leonce Ndikumana & Akwasi Nti-Addae, 2013. "Access to Credit by Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa: How Relevant Is Gender?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 293-297, May.
    18. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Report 2012 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2012]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4391, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brixiova, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry, 2016. "Start-Up Capital and Women's Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Swaziland," IZA Discussion Papers 10279, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Amina Ika Micah, 2022. "Three essays on access to credit and financial shock in Nigeria," Economics PhD Theses 0422, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Zuzana Brixiová & Thierry Kangoye & Fiona Tregenna, 2020. "Enterprising Women in Southern Africa: When Does Land Ownership Matter?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 37-51, March.
    4. Zuzana Brixiová & Thierry Kangoye, 2019. "Networks, start-up capital and women's entrepreneurial performance in Africa: Evidence from Eswatini," SALDRU Working Papers 257, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    5. Hansen, Henrik & Rand, John & Win, Ngu Wah, 2022. "The gender wage gap in Myanmar: Adding insult to injury?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Brixiová, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry & Said, Mona, 2020. "Training, human capital, and gender gaps in entrepreneurial performance," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 367-380.
    7. Stephan Klasen & Janneke Pieters, 2015. "What Explains the Stagnation of Female Labor Force Participation in Urban India?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 449-478.
    8. Yamamoto, Yuki & Matsumoto, Ken’ichi & Kawata, Keisuke & Kaneko, Shinji, 2019. "Gender-based differences in employment opportunities and wage distribution in Nepal," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Kausik Chaudhuri & Subash Sasidharan & Rajesh Seethamma Natarajan Raj, 2020. "Gender, small firm ownership, and credit access: some insights from India," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1165-1181, April.
    10. Antonia Grohmann & Annekathrin Schoofs, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Intra-Household Decision Making: Evidence from Rwanda," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1720, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Seneviratne, Prathi, 2020. "Gender wage inequality during Sri Lanka’s post-reform growth: A distributional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    12. Claudia Piras & Andrea Filippo Presbitero & Roberta Rabellotti, 2013. "Definitions Matter: Measuring Gender Gaps in Firms' Access to Credit," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 90, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    13. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    14. Monsueto, Sandro Eduardo & Simão, Rosycler Cristal Santos, 2008. "The impact of gender discrimination on poverty in Brazil," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    15. Kilic, Talip & Palacios-López, Amparo & Goldstein, Markus, 2015. "Caught in a Productivity Trap: A Distributional Perspective on Gender Differences in Malawian Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 416-463.
    16. Jamie H. Douglas & Michael D. Steinberger, 2015. "The Sexual Orientation Wage Gap for Racial Minorities," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 59-108, January.
    17. P.W. Miller & S. Rummery, 1989. "Gender Wage Discrimination in Australia: A reassessment," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 89-21, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    18. Shireen Kanji, 2011. "Labor Force Participation, Regional Location, and Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers in Russia," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 62-72, March.
    19. Islam, Asif M. & Amin, Mohammad, 2023. "The gender labor productivity gap across informal firms," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    20. Brandon Vick, 2017. "Measuring links between labor monopsony and the gender pay gap in Brazil," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender gap in the labor market; skills; credit; multivariate analysis; policies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10455. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.