Female Labour Force Participation - a VoxDevLit

Prof. Madeline McKelway is a Co-editor of this literature review that helps to summarize the evidence on women's labor force participation.

Abstract (from the VoxDevLit website):

Women's labour force participation is lower than men's throughout the world. Policymakers are often interested in increasing women's labour supply, given its positive impacts on women's empowerment, children's human capital, and overall economic growth. We identify several policies that consistently increase women's labour supply: increasing childcare availability, empowering women within households, psychological interventions, prompting businesses to offer amenities like flexibility that female employees value, and increased global exposure among export industries that disproportionately hire women. Other policies we discuss, such as skills training or depression treatment, yield more mixed results and are probably insufficient by themselves to increase women's labour supply in environments where they face other large barriers, such as social norms or childcare and other household obligations. We also identify several important barriers to women's labour supply – namely, discrimination and a lack of safety and harassment in public spaces. Developing effective policies to address these constraints remains an important and unresolved question.
 

From the VoxDev website: "VoxDevLits are wiki-inspired literature reviews that aim to summarise the evidence base on narrowly defined topics related to development economics. Each Lit is written by a community of scholars working on the specific topic addressed in the review. They are intended for both policymakers and researchers."