Exposición de propuestas desde los diferentes enfoques

Women’s decision to work is subject to the aspects such as their education level, skills, and job availability at the individual level. On the other hand, FLFP rate is largely determined by factors which are in one form or the other, indicative of social, economic, cultural and demographic conditions of the society as a whole.

Cross sectional studies (Sweet (1973),Waite(1980)) show an inverted U shape relationship

between married women’s labour force participation and age (14-54 years). The effect of women’s

age on LFP behaviour appears to depend on number of the pre-school children. Smith-Lovin and

Tickamyer(1978) argue that vast majority of young married women intend to have children and carry out these intentions during the early years of marriage consequently showing a relatively lower rate of labour force participation. The participation rate keeps on increasing as women complete their fertility and their children grow until it drops again at the age of about 55, therefore,

the impact of age on women work participation is likely to be curvilinear.Berndt(1996) identifies

that females’ labour force participation rate varies by age and has significantly increased across

all age groups over the last three decades. Mackellar and Bird (1997) indicate that “ageing” is

an important feature that is increasing the size of the labour force in the developing countries. Nevertheless, the proportion remains constant for the middle aged group. In the population under- 15 age group the LFP is very low, whereas participation is substantial within 60-plus age group.

However,Sheehan and Standing(1978) show that for females age has relatively less significance

than education and other social and environmental factors, to participate in the labour market.

Lee et al.(2008) claim that marriage remains a main obstruction against young female’s em- ployment in Korea. The findings demonstrate that an average married woman is 40- 60% less likely to participate in the labour force compared to single woman in urban Korea. On the other

hand,Yakubu(2010) argues the point that a married woman is more likely to participate in labour

force compared to a female living with a partner, widows or those never married using quarterly

work of neoclassical labour supply to encompass household in order to address the issues of the discouraged worker hypothesis (the idea is that the employers sometimes discriminate against the wives on the basis of the suspicion that they may quit the job when their husbands will find the employment), and the male chauvinist model (where wives take their husbands’ income as exoge- nous).

Education is a prime determinant of the labour market outcome according to the human capital theories. The most popular hypothesis among human capital theory is based on the idea of oppor- tunity cost. Since education is an investment, and given that, education and earning potential are positively related, the opportunity cost of not-working gets higher with education. Consequently,

the incentive to seek employment, is raised (Finegan (1962). However, Sheehan and Standing

(1978) argue the mere fact that education improves women employment opportunities does not

mean that they will necessary or wish to be able to take advantage of those. There may be an

inverse relationship between women educational attainment and FLFP.Mundial(1995) posit the

view that, the decision not to participate in labour market is neither the reflection of the females own choice, nor does it correspond to the concept of maximum utilisation of household resources. In addition, the market wage does not take conscious knowledge of the social benefits of females education and employment. This implies that discrimination in households and in the market car- ries not only private costs for individuals and households, but social costs for society as well.

Addison and Demery(1993) observe that FLFP is low on average compared to males. It is due to the fact that the opportunity cost of non-participation falls with lower offered wages. As a re- sult, the unemployment rates are higher for females while the opportunity cost of job search is relatively low and discrimination in hiring leads to lesser job-prospects for them.

Besides marital status and child-rearing, education is considered the most important deter- minant of female labour supply amongst other socio-economic factors in empirical studies. The vision behind this perspective is that education increases the opportunity cost of housework for females by raising the potential for higher earnings and social status through labour market partic- ipation. However, the effect cannot be generalised and it is hard to detect the impact at the aggre-

gate level (Bloom et al.(2009) ). It seems to be strong in countries with U shaped labour supply

curve. It is because of modernization that attitudes have changed, and the advancement in the technology as well as economic developments have transformed the nature of jobs, offering new positions that females can attain through higher education. At such levels, the educational oppor- tunities and awareness contributes towards the reduction of fertility, which in turn has a significant

impact on female LFP.Spierings and Smits(2007), indicate that higher education is an important factor in womens LFP in five Middle Eastern & North African countries (MENA-Egypt, Jordan,

Morocco, Syria and Tunisia). Tansel(2002) andGunduz-Hocsgor and Smits(2008) conclude the

same for Turkey.Duryea et al.(2001) examine the FLFP in 18 countries of Latin America and the

Caribbean during the 1990s and demonstrate that the increase in the years of schooling accounts for about 30 percent of the total increase in FLFP rates, whereas, the remaining 70 percent orig- inate from other factors impacting upon an increased participation rates. The higher the level of education, the greater is the likelihood of females to participate in the labour market.

The social norms and traditions with respect to female labour force participation can be over- come by investing in education. Certainly, empirical studies conducted in the developing countries strongly assert the theoretical prediction that education has a positive effect on the female labour supply. However, the emphasis is on the main finding that higher education plays a crucial role.

Evans and Saraiva(1993), considering the socio-economic conditions to measure the impact on women’s labour force participation in Brazil, find that labour force participation rises with the years of schooling. However, the increase is largest at secondary level and above. Evidence from Asian countries also intimate that higher education plays a key part in increasing females’ par-

ticipation. Cameron et al.(2001), explore a U-shaped relationship between female labour supply

and education in Indonesia, Korea, Philippine, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Primary education has either a negative or no influence on FLFP, whilst higher education has a positive association with participation. Moreover, the tertiary education is positively related to the probability of women’s

employment for each of the five countries mentioned above. However,Benham(1974) does not

look at it so simply. In his view, there are multiple other factors for example, household income besides education, which encourage women to participate in the labour market.

Demographic factors like household structure is also considered an important characteristic

that can effect the FLFP rate. Mackellar and Bird (1997) suggest that demography and labour

force participation are inter-connected and should therefore be considered jointly. Sasaki(2002)

studies the effect of family structure on FLFP in Australia and observes that co-residence with one’s own parents or in laws has a positive and significant impact on the participation. This suggests that sharing a residence or living with extended family allows married women to share the household activities with other family members. Thus, providing an incentive to participate in the labour market. However, it varies from country to country due to cultural and demographic

positive effect on the labour supply of married females in Korea by using the Korean Labour and Income Panel Survey (KLIPS) 2004.

Aslam et al.(2008) acknowledge that with the constraint of nuclear family14 the opportunity cost of non participation in the labour force may be even lower for educated women with children because an educated woman is probably better able to take care of the child in a vitally important early education of her children than a less educated woman. He emphasizes that this is particularly

likely to be the case in the developing countries. Bradbury and Katz(2005) identify a decline in

female labour force participation during the 1990’s, specifically among the well educated married women with children. They utilized the U.S Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) along with the Current Population Survey (CPS) to analyse labour market involvement of women over the last two decades. They found out that the unobserved and unpredictable factors are larger contributors towards a decline in the participation of women. They further discussed that the possible explana- tions of this outcome shift might be the shift in women’s preferences or social norms, worsening of opportunities at workplace, or the availability of more than one source of income for a family.

Other factors “ especially the presence of children and elderly in the household, are often con- sidered as key factors that shape individuals’ incentives and opportunities to seek employment. For

women in traditional societies, these factors are often found to act as impediments”(Esfahani and

Shajari(2012), p.3). The presence of children particularly those under six years of age constraint married womens employment. A large body of economics research has been devoted to the issue

of childbearing and its effects on female labour force participation (see, e.g., Blau and Robins

(1988);Gronau(1977);Hotz and Miller(1993);Moffitt(1984);Nakamura and Nakamura(1981);

Schultz (1978)). Behrman and Wolfe (1984) argue that having children in the household has a small effect on participation; schooling and experience rather have significant and large effects on

labour supply. Ettner(1995) based on 1986-1988 “Survey of Income and Program Participation”

panels, investigates the impact of care-giving to disabled elderly parents on female labour supply. He recognises that females are more likely than males to be engaged in elder care.

For women, particularly wives and mothers, household characteristics are major considera- tions in making decisions concerning work participation. Economic conditions are of particular importance. Women may decide to work out of economic necessity; economic pressures, either from low family income or from a discrepancy between life style aspirations, and available eco-

nomic resources to afford such aspirations (Oppenheimer(1982)). Numerous studies support the

14_{Family comprising of one couple with or without children living in household. It is a family which is not extended}

income effect on labour supply behaviour. A negative impact of family income is found with

womens participation in the labour market (Cain(1969),Sweet(1973),Joseph(1983)). With the

rise in income, it becomes more affordable for families to observe conservative customs which in turn, leads to the decline in FLFP rate. However, the trend may be reversed, if the development in education and awareness can help change the social attitude towards gender in the long run (Bahramitash and Esfahani(2011)).

The importance of culture in determining the female labour force participation cannot be de- nied. In the recent literature, it has gained more attention in the empirical analysis as one strand of a more general attempt to rigorously measure the relationship between culture and economic

phenomena (Fernandez et al.(2004)).

Dwyer and Coward(1992), examine that women are expected to perform a dual responsibility as the head of household. One is, to provide income and other is, to make available the resources required to meet the family needs. Some women are generally the principal caregivers at home, for them it is extremely vulnerable to meet the demands of family and work at the same time. How-

ever,De Munoz(2007) believes that the women as heads of house are more likely to participate

in the labour market.

Finally, there are some other potential determinants mentioned in the literature as the potential determinants of FLFP. Given the objectives, and limitations of the dataset, this study focuses mainly on personal and household characteristics discussed in the data section in detail.