The study examines the determinants of women’s labor market participation in Africa using Bayesian Model Averaging to address model uncertainty in cross-country regressions. Our results suggest a U-shaped relationship between income per capita and female labor force participation, which implies that women’s participation increases with increased economic development.
The findings also indicate that factors such as economic complexity, religious fractionalization,freedom of mobility, access to assets, adolescent fertility rate, mental and physical health, human capital, flexibility in labor market regulations, and employment in the services sector are associated with increased female labor force participation.
However, factors such as social networks, globalization, ethnic and language fractionalization, minimum wage policies, workplace discrimination, and gender disparities in formal employment hinder participation.
This paper shows mutually consistent evidence to support prior studies on female labor force participation and that correcting systemic and structural barriers represents a “gender-smart” way to promote gender parity in the labor market.
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