scholarly journals The Impact of Financial Access on Female Labour Force Participation: Evidence from Panel Estimation

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Khai Ying Eng ◽  
Chee-Hong Law ◽  
Yiing Jia Loke

This paper examines the relationship between financial access and economic empowerment among females, i.e., female labour force participation by testing a panel data of 51 countries ranging from 2004 to 2016. The number of bank branches and automated teller machines, both in thousand square feet and a hundred thousand adults, are applied as financial access indicators. The estimation method employed is the dynamic panel system generalized method of moment estimators. The control variables in the equation are the life expectancy, gross domestic product per capita, and female education enrolment. The results showed that bank branches have more noticeable impacts than automated teller machines in affecting the female labour force participation rate, implying that bank branches' services have a more substantial influence on women empowerment than automated teller machines. Furthermore, financial access indicators show a negative association with female labour force participation, probably due to female discrimination in financial access or the income effect caused by better financial access. Another possible reason is that the development policies could have bypassed women, as indicated by previous studies. To overcome this situation, governments could improve their financial service to ensure that financial access benefits women empowerment, including exploring the microfinance and special loans for female borrowers.

Author(s):  
Syeda Anam Hassan ◽  
Nazish Rafaz

Education is an essential factor of economic growth and a fundamental right of every person. No country can attain sustainable economic growth without substantial investment in education. Education improves technical capabilities of exploring new ideas and innovations. It improves the quality of life and leads to collective benefits to individuals and societies. In this study, we investigate the impact of female education on the economic growth of Pakistan by adopting the methodology of the simple Ordinary Least Squares regression with time spanning from 1990 to 2016. OLS regression results show that 1% increase in female education, female labour force participation, education expenditure and fertility rate causes 96% increase in GDP of Pakistan. Female education has a significant and positive impact on economic growth. Female education has a positive relationship with female labour force participation rate. The female labour force is dramatically increasing the economic growth. The policy recommendation is that government should allocate more of its budget on education and make efforts for improvement of the quality of education at different levels. The fertility rate has a negative relationship with female education and economic growth. Female education can reduce fertility rate and play a magnificent role in economic growth of Pakistan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-322
Author(s):  
Harpal Sangha ◽  
Robert Riegler

Purpose This study aims to analyse whether globalisation, i.e. informational and economic globalisation, promoted or impeded female labour force participation (FLFP) in South Asia. Design/methodology/approach The KOF Globalisation Index is used alongside a fixed effect panel data Discroll–Kraay estimator to control for unobserved factors and achieve robust standard errors. The sample covers all South Asian countries for the period 1999–2015. Findings Globalisation does not advocate the “feminisation of employment”; in fact, the impact is negative. This is driven by the economic dimension of globalisation, particularly for younger women. However, this impact is mitigated by informational globalisation that affects FLFP positively, especially for women aged 35 years and older. Practical implications Without support of the right governmental policies, there is a danger of globalisation creating new obstacles for women to enter the labour market. Originality/value This paper adds to the existing literature by using the more comprehensive KOF globalisation measure to identify the overall effect of globalisation on FLFP in South Asia, being the first study to analyse the impact of informational alongside economic globalisation, and investigating whether globalisation affects the labour force participation rate of various female age cohorts differently.


Author(s):  
Prakash Kengnal ◽  
Asha Bullappa

Background: The empirical work on fertility determinants widely discusses the role of socio-economic factors like female labour force participation rate, urban population and per capita gross national income in determining fertility rates. The India’s high fertility rate began to decline gradually after late 1950s and continued to fall since then. India achieved almost 31 per cent decline in fertility rate from 1990 to 2012. The objective was to examine the relationship between fertility rate, urbanization, female labour force participation rate and per capita gross national income for India.Methods: This study covers the sample period from 1990-2012. Moreover, the direction of causality between fertility rate, urbanization, female labour force participation rate and per capita gross national income in India using Granger Causality test within the Vector Error-Correction Model (VECM) are examined.Results: As a summary of the empirical results, we found that fertility rate, urbanization, female labour force participation rate and per capita gross national income in India are co-integrated and there is unidirectional Granger Causality between the four variables in long and short-run.Conclusions: The growth in urban population, female labour force participation rate and per capita gross national income are responsible for the decrease in fertility rate in India.


Author(s):  
Prashant Kandari ◽  
Uma Bahuguna

As per 2011 Census, about 70 per cent of population in Uttarakhand state resides in rural areas and the ten hill districts out of total 13 districts of the State comprises 48.1 per cent of its entire population. Difficult terrain, lack of transport, lack of employment due to non availability of industrial sector along with small farm sizes and low farm incomes has fuelled large migration from these hill rural areas of the Uttarakhand to the urban regions across the country. The various studies reflect upon the importance of women in the economy of the hill areas as they share the burden of their families and their participation in employment and subsistence cum income generating activities mainly in the rural regions is much higher than the males. The importance of women further enhances amidst the severe problem of migration of males and mainly of the youths from these regions to the urban areas. The women are left back to work in most tough conditions further taking care of the domestic chores. The females labour force participation is higher in rural areas of the state, as per National Sample Survey Office, 68th Round, the female labour force participation rate in rural areas was 31.5 percent and 10.8 percent in urban areas of the state. In this context it is very important to understand the nature of female labour force participation i.e. , whether it is in non-income generating sector like agriculture or in purely income generating sector which mainly comprises of both i.e., agriculture and non-agriculture sector. The present study analyses this distribution of female labour force participation and depicts the association between the female labour force participation in income generating activities and the total household income.


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