Female Unemployment, Gender Inclusive Education and Doing Business in Sub-Saharan Africa

The present study examines the role of female unemployment in moderating the incidence of female inclusive education on doing business by females in 44 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The estimation approach employed is the quantile regression technique which is tailored to emphasize low, intermediate and high initial levels of doing business conditions. The hypothesis that some critical levels of female unemployment should not be exceeded in order for female education to continuously reduce doing business constraints is valid in both the cost of starting a business and the time required to start a business. However, only thresholds in the latter (i.e. the time required to start a business) are within policy range. The corresponding thresholds of female unemployment (% of female labor force) that should not be exceeded in order for female inclusive education to continuously reduce the time required to start a business by a female are: 5.857 female unemployment (% of female labor force), 13.190 female unemployment (% of female labor force) and 19.217 female unemployment (% of female labor force) for the respectively the 10th, 50th and 75th quantiles. Policy implications are discussed.