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Gender Diversity, Productivity, and Wages in Egyptian Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Rami Galal

    (American University in Cairo)

  • Mona Said
  • Susan Joekes
  • Mina Sami

Abstract

Women’s employment is not evenly distributed across sectors and this variance in gender diversity can impact firms’ productivity and wages. Using the newly available EC 2013 dataset, this paper explores the relationship between gender diversity, productivity, and wages. Our first finding is that gender diversity is positively associated with productivity and wages in the knowledge-intensive service sector. This result is consistent with the notion that higher gender diversity increases heterogeneity of beliefs and values, and thus may be linked to greater critical thinking required in knowledge-based industries. Our second finding is that there is a negative or no association with productivity and wages among less knowledge-intensive service and both high- and low-tech manufacturing firms. These relationships are robust across different industry classifications and measures of diversity.

Suggested Citation

  • Rami Galal & Mona Said & Susan Joekes & Mina Sami, 2018. "Gender Diversity, Productivity, and Wages in Egyptian Firms," Working Papers 1207, Economic Research Forum, revised 12 Jun 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1207
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Abeer Elshennawy & Mohammed Bouaddi, 2021. "Sources of firm-level heterogeneity in labour productivity in Egypt’s manufacturing sector," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2589-2612, May.

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