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In this paper we study the extension of paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks in India to estimate its effect on the contractual arrangements of working women. To identify causal effects, we exploit the variation generated by the institutional features of the policy mandate in India, which applies only to establishments employing 10 workers or more. We find that women are 4.3 percentage points less likely to be employed as regular salaried workers in the establishments as a result of this policy. We also show that there is an increase in the employment of women as unpaid and wage labourers in establishments, but no change takes place in women entrepreneurship. The effects appear to be driven by married and younger women confirming that the extension of maternity leave imposes a motherhood penalty in terms of women's labor market opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'Work Style Reform' (WSR) initiative, spearheaded by the late former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, has advocated for the adoption of 'fukugyō' ('side jobs') as an additional source of income for workers. While this initiative is often uncritically viewed as a possible solution to insecure employment, especially for women employed in low-paying, temporary positions, this article argues that the WSR's promotion of fukugyō, reinforces patriarchal norms rather than challenging them. Furthermore, it critiques the neoliberal ideology that underpins the WSR initiative, which portrays underpriviledged groups of workers, such as working women in non-regular employment earning less than their male counterparts, as 'flexible', 'autonomous' and 'entrepreneurial', capable of juggling multiple jobs while fulfiling their domestic duties. The article claims that the WSR's promotion of fukugyō lacks sufficient legal safeguards and social welfare support for fukugyō workers, the majority of whom are not recognised as 'workers' under Japan's labour law. As a result, it could exacerbate the problems of employment insecurity and gender inequality in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of trade liberalisation on the sectoral reallocation of workers, particularly from manufacturing to services. It empirically assesses this relationship using local labour market level data for South Africa, a country that experienced significant reductions in manufacturing tariff protection and declining shares of manufacturing in employment from 1996 to 2011. The empirical analysis draws on population census data covering 234 municipalities fors 1996, 2001 and 2011. Contrary to expectations, employment in both the services and manufacturing sectors grew more slowly in municipalities where manufacturing workers faced large reductions in tariffs. We demonstrate that the relative decline in services employment was, in part, driven by negative spillover effects arising from lower derived demand for services inputs, income and infrastructure investment linked to the weaker growth in manufacturing from tariff reductions. These spillover effects diminished the absorption of labour by the services sector and contributed towards declining participation in the labour force in municipalities where manufacturing workers were exposed to large reductions in tariff protection relative to other municipalities. Tariff reductions have a stronger effect on the employment of women in manufacturing, while the adverse spillover effects on service employment are stronger for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a theoretical model where brain skills and capital are complementary, and female workers have a comparative advantage in brain-intensive occupations compared with brawn-intensive occupations. Financing constraints reduce the capital intensity and the demand for brain-intensive occupations, thus reducing the demand for female workers. Using data of manufacturing firms in China from 2004 to 2007, this paper finds that financing constraints reduce the female share of employment in firms. This effect is greater in industries with higher external finance dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the employment and work intentions of Syrian refugee women in the Netherlands. While earlier studies showed that refugee women have dramatically low labor force participation rates, it remains poorly understood why this is the case. In this study, we provide new insights, using large-scale, nationally representative data on Syrian refugee women in the Netherlands. Our analyses provide evidence to suggest that beyond human capital characteristics, three gender-specific factors contribute to lower participation rates: discrimination of Muslim women who wear a veil, family constraints and traditional gender role attitudes. Among Syrian unemployed women, we find that wearing a veil or having young children is associated with an inability to work, whereas traditional gender role attitudes are significantly associated with unwillingness to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWith the increase in the education level of women, their level of representation in the professional professions and their presence in business life has increased. It has been inevitable that this situation would affect the socio-economic structure of societies and the health indicators of employed women. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of women’s employment indicators on women’s health indicators using the panel data analysis method. Two different econometric models were developed in the study. Model-1 predicts that a possible 1% increase in the female unemployment rate would result in a 0.06% decrease in the fertility rate. Model-2 estimates that a possible 1% increase in the female unemployment rate would lead to a 0.04% decrease in female-specific average life expectancy. Also, it is predicted that a possible increase of 1% in the total labor force participation rate of women can provide an increase of 0.04% in the average life expectancy of women. The results of the study indicate that the presence of women in the workforce directly impacts women’s health indicators, particularly socio-economic indicators. Thus, there is a need to develop employment policies based on women’s health in the employability of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article inspects the relationship between fertility and employment, providing an explanatory mixed-method analysis to gauge their nexus for rural and urban Albania over the 2000s. We instrument reproductive decisions with having two first-born daughters in a 2SLS model of employment. We show that having an additional child negatively influences employment probability for rural mothers, but not for women in urban areas. Heterogeneous analyses show that rural women who lack education or wealth are more dependent on their fertility decisions, whilst there are no relevant differences by occupation types. We further show that the fertility effect is reinforced by the characteristics of the rural household, such as the presence of seniors in the household or if the partner is working. We then examine qualitatively how structural and contextual settings influence women in their decisions. We inspect the experience of rural women and employers from three distinct rural municipalities. Interviews reveal several obstacles that create a gap between employer and employee expectations, resulting in females refusing job offers. The qualitative findings suggest that targeted policies on transport, childcare, and employment services are essential aspects of policy-making to favour rural and distant women's integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to fill the existing literature gap by exploring tourism's effect on women's employment in 42 African countries while considering advanced econometric modelling. This study applies the panel GLS model, the two-step system GMM, and quantile regression (QR) to evaluate the data from 1996 to 2020. There is evidence to suggest that tourism has a substantial impact on women's employment. Some models are also run to examine how tourism affects women's work in agriculture, industry, and the service sector. Although tourism increases overall female labour force participation, it has a negative coefficient for explaining female labour force participation in agriculture. In fact, tourism has a substantial positive effect on the number of working women in both the service and manufacturing sectors. This research adds to the literature by highlighting the role that tourism plays in facilitating the transition of women from the agricultural workforce to those in the industrial and service sectors. The findings of this study have valuable contributions for future research since they show the importance of women's employment opportunities in agriculture, industry, and service sectors and inform policy discussions on the impact of the tourism industry on women's employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Indian state-level panel data on crimes against women for the period 2000–2019, we examined whether various rates of crime against women were converging. The second-generation unit-root test proposed by Pesaran (2007) was employed to check for absolute β-convergence after conforming to cross-sectional dependence in our panel analysis. The results showed no convergence for various rates of crime against women at the aggregate level, barring dowry deaths. The disaggregated zone-wise results revealed convergence in Eastern and North Eastern states for the Composite Crime Index (CI). The rate of rape was convergent in the west zone, while dowry deaths and cruelty by husbands were convergent only in the Eastern zone. Note that there was a weak convergence in dowry deaths in the North zone. In short, our study fails to find robust evidence of strong convergence in various categories of crime against women in India. The system-GMM results of conditional β-convergence broadly supported the no-convergence results of Pesaran’s unit-root test, as divergence was found in most crime categories. The prominent sources of divergence are women’s employment, female foeticide rate, number of pending cases, rate of arrest, and the proportion of Schedule Castes (SCs) people in the total population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the gender disparities in the potential creation of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) for China. Using the latest available data, social accounting matrix for 149 sectors, combined with employment satellite accounts based on China's seventh census published in 2022, we analyse gender disparities in the potential job creation from the RCEP. The results show that the RCEP will potentially create more than 4.08 million jobs in China, with a particularly large increase in low-value-added sectors such as agriculture, light industry and low-end manufacturing. Imports are likely to create more jobs than exports. The potential job creation for females is more than 1.58 million, which is still 910,000 less than for males. While the RCEP may create jobs for females, it may expand the gender and skills disparities. The increased rate of tertiary education for Chinese females has not resulted in significant gains in current female employment. Therefore, measures to reduce taxes on imports and exports, share the cost of childbirth between employer and husband, and upgrade industries to create more high-skilled jobs are important to address the gender disparity in employment in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 lockdown measures exacerbated the struggles of societies with existing inequalities. Given that women are generally the most vulnerable in times of pandemics and associated economic downturns, the study seeks to understand the struggles that female farmers experienced during the COVID-19 crisis and their survival responses and livelihood enhancement. To do this, we organized six women’s focus group discussions and interviewed 145 women farmers in communities within Builsa South and Ada (in Ghana) where farming is one of the major occupations for women. The findings reveal that the pandemic severely disrupted women’s access to farm inputs, markets, and farming activities amidst the absence of COVID-19 relief funds. Consequently, female farmers had to adopt multiple alternative livelihood strategies to meet their basic needs. But, the nature of the adaptation strategy adopted depended on the intersections of gender, household characteristics and remittance flows. Female farmers from migrant households with larger household sizes temporarily migrated as an alternative livelihood strategy compared to those from non-migrant households and with smaller family sizes. This distributional consequence of COVID-19 is important for government agencies to carefully consider when forming future response policies to pandemics in general and the rural agricultural sector specifically since it has implications for food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the lines between leisure and work have become increasingly indistinct, gaming has evolved from a purely recreational pastime to a productive endeavor, leading to a shift from players as consumers to players as laborers. Inspired by "women's work" studies and audience commodity theory, this research takes League of Legends (LoL) as a case to analyze how player interactions, as labor, create value within free-to-play (F2P) massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). This article employs a combination of political economic, and critical analysis to demonstrate how free-to-play games monetize player interactions within them. It also proposes a pattern for understanding the exploitation of players' labor in three phases: the labor process, remuneration settlement, and consumption. Thus, this study contributes to the digital labor debate by combining the notions of "women's work" and digital labor and extending audience commodity theory into the domain of video games. It also enriches the scholarly conversation on the monetization strategies of video games and free-to-play commodities, emphasizing the unrecognized labor inherent in player interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of export diversification on income inequality in Central Africa through the employment channel. The sample consists of 9 countries over the period 2000–2019. A quadratic regression is applied to a panel data model using the random effect and the two stages least squares methods. The results show that export diversification increases income inequality in Central Africa. However, this effect is non-linear with the form of an inverted U. Increasing the number of wage workers reduces the marginal effect of export diversification on income inequality while increasing the number of unpaid workers increases this effect. Moreover, diversification is less likely to reduce income inequality when it increases male employment than when it increases female employment. The effect of diversification on income inequality remains non-linear in an inverted U-shape for CEMAC countries' members (CEMAC: Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States) and oil-producing countries, while it is non-linear in a U-shape for non-CEMAC countries and non-oil-producing countries. We recommend that Central African countries promote the diversification of exports while encouraging new productive activities to generate more paid jobs and to favor female employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the gendered division of paid, unpaid, and total work in contemporary India. We explore this division of work through an analysis of India's first large-scale time use survey, conducted in 2019. Our findings reveal that the distribution of paid, unpaid, and total work is highly gender-biased. We also found that rural women bear relatively more burden of total work than urban women; whereas, urban men bear relatively more burden of total work than rural men. We observed striking gender differences in the paid, unpaid, and total work burden across the key household and individual-level characteristics of age, marital status, presence of children, income status and employment status. Compared to all other categories, married employed women belonging to the working age cohort (15–59) bear the highest burden of total work in India, and hence are left with the least available free time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adjusted headcount ratio from the multidimensional poverty measures has been used in cross-sectional research on the labour market to study the cumulative aspects of multiple job deprivations. This article takes advantage of the decomposition property of this method to develop a dynamic model for examining and understanding the transitions between precarious employment dimensions and index changes from a longitudinal perspective using panel data from Chile. Evidence produced by this method shows multidimensional precarious employment traps in women, while men suffer greater deprivations in the social protection dimension despite economic growth and the overall decrease in the multidimensional deprivation index. Both results would not be evident if only a cross-sectional analysis were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies a panel data stochastic frontier analysis to country data towards examining the effect of gender equity in labour market opportunities upon efficiency in the production of GDP. It finds that aggregate technical efficiency is improved by a widening of women's labour market opportunities as indicated by a rise in their share of employment, but that this effect is dampened by patriarchal cultural norms whose strength is measured by the proportion of the population tracing its ancestry to ethnic groups who adopted the plough as an agricultural implement. That aggregate technical efficiency rises in women's share of employment is consistent with improvement in the average quality of the workforce when talented women's entry to it is eased. That this effect is dampened by patriarchal cultural norms is consistent with them promoting a misallocation of employed women. Additionally, aggregate technical efficiency appears improved by democracy, the control of corruption, and trade-openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to understand how Druze women's employment in nontraditional fields (such as engineering, medicine, and law) shapes gender role division in their nuclear family. Data from 24 interviews with educated Druze women employed in high-quality professions suggests that Druze women who work in these fields succeed in bringing about a change in perceptions and practices regarding gender role division in their households. The interviews revealed three gender patterns: (a) ten women in the current study indicated egalitarian gender role division; (b) six women indicted reversal of gender roles in their home, and (c) eight women described a traditional role division, which required them to sacrifice their career in favor of the family. The choice of Druze women to study nontraditional professions is increasingly recognized and valued in Druze society and its clergy, driving a paradigm shift concerning women's employment and gender role division in the private sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Pakistan has seen an increase in policy efforts to encourage women's participation in the workforce. However, existing research suggests that these policies have not resulted in a proportional increase in women’s labour force participation. This study employs an ecological systems approach to investigate the factors that impact the engagement of tertiary-educated Pakistani women in the labour market and their experiences of employment. Beyond elucidating the barriers to women's employment, the analysis also delves into factors that empower women to navigate the obstacles encountered in their employment journey. Drawing upon a series of comprehensive interviews conducted with 35 Pakistani women and employing a thematic analysis approach, this research dissects the way in which societal norms and values, including notions of honour, the prioritisation of marriage, and the enduring presence of gender inequality within the domestic sphere, constrain women's participation in the labour market. Our findings show that the support extended by father’s and husband’s in facilitating women's pursuit of employment, as well as the personal strategies adopted by women to overcome gender-based discrimination in workplace settings, are pivotal elements that facilitate women’s participation in the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Economics of the Middle East: A Comparative Approach" by James E. Rauch is a book that examines the political and economic structure of twenty-one Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey. It focuses on various aspects such as human development, income inequality, gender gaps, environmental challenges, government spending, and political economy. The book provides policy recommendations to promote socioeconomic development in the region. It is a valuable resource for researchers interested in understanding the social, political, and economic dynamics of the Middle East and North Africa. [Extracted from the article]

Employment in the transport sector has historically proven to be male-dominated, even in countries like Tunisia which have evidenced public policy narratives and legal employment frameworks promoting gender equality. This paper presented the findings from a grounded research study examining women's employment experiences in blue-collar roles in the transport sector of Greater Tunis. Drawing on extensive interviews with both female and male transport employees, as well as field observations, it demonstrates that familiar sectoral narratives of transport work as 'too rough, too hard and too dirty for women' can be understood through the broader political economy of the country and the transport sector within it. The research evidences the sustained and mutually-constitutive relationship between patriarchal cultural norms and capital's development through successive periods of populist welfarism and neo-liberal governance, indicating that progressive advances in women's employment rights are not socio-economically embedded and suggesting that future research would be usefully informed by feminist social reproduction theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy promulgated the 'Golfo-Mosca Law' obliging companies to introduce gender quotas on boards of directors. The goal was to analyse whether or to what extent women bring gender equality to boards' debates as well as men's reactions following the introduction of quotas. The authors interviewed 100 women directors and 34 men CEOs/Presidents between June 2020 and February 2021, referring to the concepts of 'critical mass', 'symbolic violence' and 'post-feminist sensibility' in order to interpret the data. The analysis shows that gender quotas are considered necessary for modifying boards' routines. However, the introduction of the gender equality topic in the debate is difficult, also in a critical mass situation, depending on the experience of women within boards. In relation to this, the authors identify strategies adopted by women ('avoiding', 'neutral' and 'empowering') and forms of resistance they encountered within the boards ('denial', 'second class citizenship', 'microaggressions', 'backlash and gender fatigue'), showing that the potential transformative role of women as board members is variable and limited. Men appear as the guardians of the gendered symbolic order, considering gender equality as a means to enhance companies' reputations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the occupational emancipation of women in Finland and examines the professional careers of women who graduated with a matriculation examination from three upper secondary girls' schools during the period of the 1890s to the 1910s. One of the schools was for Finnish-speaking girls, and two of the schools were for Swedish-speaking girls. This article asks what kinds of educational paths and professional careers these upper secondary girls' school graduates had during their lives after graduation. Attention is paid to both the typical professional careers and to those careers that could be characterised as exceptional and atypical. The source material consists of student registers that offered an opportunity to create a prosopography (i.e. set biography). In this article, the prosopography and individual biographies of women with exceptional careers shed light on the horizon of possibilities for Finnish women at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, specifically, their horizon of possibilities to gain education and degrees, as well as posts in the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant families are generally less likely to use nonparental care for their pre-school-age children than native families. The few studies that have systematically examined the determinants of centre-based care (day care) for migrants have often zoomed in on the migrant population and have not made comparisons with natives nor have they decomposed the migrant-native gap. This paper presents a mediation analysis with an elaborate set of measures conceptually categorised into cultural and social support explanations. Using nationally representative survey data on Dutch parents with origins in Muslim countries and a comparison group of parents with Dutch origins (natives), this paper shows large and growing gaps in the enrolment of 0–4-year old's in subsidised day care even after controlling for differences in working hours, income, and education. A substantial part of the gap could be explained by cultural differences, particularly the more traditional attitudes toward marriage and family and the higher levels of religiosity among migrants. Of the cultural effects, a lack of trust in institutions appeared to play no role. Social support explanations that rely on alternative sources of support for child care were less important and differences in neighbourhood cohesion served as a suppressor of the gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gosta Esping-Andersen (1990), in his ground-breaking book, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, created a decommodification index to classify advanced capitalist countries into the liberal, conservative-corporatist, and social-democratic welfare regimes. One of the most common criticisms of Esping-Andersen's typology by feminists such as Jane Lewis (1992) is that it is 'male-centric' and did not address women's unpaid work with families. Ann Shola Orloff (1993) has gone a step further in the criticism of Esping-Andersen's typology by addressing women's opportunity to paid employment and the capability to establish and run an independent households. I originally used the framework to analyse the socio-legal dimensions of expenditure in MICs; in this paper, the decommodification index has focused on variables that are on the fiscal side. Theoretically, this paper contributes to gender and social policy discussions on women's access to employment and related entitlements. Empirically, it creates clusters of MICs into three based on latent class analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis of economic, social, and legal variables, such as availability of non-tax benefits to private child-care centres, provision of child-care services by the government; tax-deductible payments for child-care; provision of legal-aid for family and criminal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent United Nations World Tourism Organisation publication, Regional report on women in tourism in the Middle East identified that the representation of women working in tourism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is significantly below the global average. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabian (KSA) government is seeking to address this imbalance. The purpose of this research is to support this initiative, by determining how women's workforce participation in the event sector can be encouraged. A qualitative study using a mix of case studies and semi-structured interviews with twelve personnel from within the event sector in KSA was conducted. Additional qualitative data was gathered from the authors' participation in virtual gender-related tourism events and conferences. Thematic analysis indicated key findings which include the need for the KSA government and the corporate sector to promote a positive attitude towards women in the workplace. The cessation of activity in the sector, due to COVID-19, requires government and business leaders to develop a recovery plan that will continue to foster the empowerment of women in the sector. Without a recovery plan, there is a real risk that the gains in the empowerment of women in the sector will be lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts to define the genre of the surrogacy thriller as a prominent form for recent representations of commercial surrogacy. Placing this genre into a history of film representations of surrogacy and into a wider history of representing women's work on film, it argues that the genre appears to intervene in debates about gestational labour. On the surface, these films appear to attack both mothers and surrogates alike for their participation in paid employment. However, along with other representations of surrogacy, these films also display a mingling of the language of care with the language of the economy in ways that trouble the easy separation of these two spheres. Potentially, this combination makes possible a critique of gestational labour which would make the nature of women's work visible and available to resistance. In the form of the thriller this potential seems muted. However, through a reading of James Bridges 1970 film, The Baby Maker, this essay suggests that a space for this critique is possible in the depiction of surrogacy as work which combines both physical and affective labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women in male-dominated workplaces may experience marginalization at work (communication of difference, disapproval, and/or exclusion), which can have deleterious effects on career outcomes. Engaging in communicative resilience processes likely mitigates some of these negative effects. Based on responses from 229 women who endured gender-based workplace marginalization, moderation models including communicative measures of marginalization and resilience processes as well as career outcomes were tested. Findings suggested that greater exposure to marginalization at work was associated with negative career outcomes, whereas increased engagement in resilience processes (e.g. reframing, humor, new routines) was associated with positive career outcomes (i.e. higher job satisfaction and fit, lower turnover intention). Moreover, some resilience processes moderated the association between marginalization at work and (a) job satisfaction, (b) organizational fit, and (c) turnover intention. Together, these results offer theoretical implications for the communication theory of resilience (CTR) and practical implications for organizations and women in male-dominated workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research continues to emerge on the role of Brexit on migrants' belonging in Britain, and this article contributes to the scholarship in related ways. The article draws on belonging as an analytical frame to examine how Polish migrant women in professional occupations challenge and negotiate their belonging at work. The article uses qualitative narrative interviews collected pre-Brexit (2015/2016) with Polish women living in Greater Manchester to examine their belonging strategies. Despite these migrant women's shared whiteness, Europeanness, and professional status, these signifiers do not prevent them from encountering non-belonging. Nonetheless, the women's narratives show they use various active and complex strategies (ethnicised, classed, and individualized) in their workplaces to conceal, recast and uplift their position to forge belonging. The findings enhance our understanding of workplace belonging processes, including Polish professional women's strategies during a challenging period. Additionally, they contribute to the development of future workplace policy on belonging research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues both that the Physician's Tale explicitly addresses the sexually threatening nature of employment for women, and that it offers a suggestive parallel to the situation as it may have unfolded between Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne, who in 1380 released Chaucer from her raptus: de raptu meo. Chaucer's Physician's Tale presents a chance to consider the ways Chaucer envisions both the mind of a rapist and rape culture in general, including especially what feminist philosopher Kate Manne calls "himpathy" and victim-blaming. In this tale, a churl presents a case in which he alleges abduction in order to commit abduction—for the purpose of rape. Chaucer's many alterations to his sources present Virginia, the victim/protagonist, as what Judith M. Bennett has called a "singlewoman," a fourteenth-century category of woman especially vulnerable to coercive labor laws under the Statute of Laborers. In this article, then, I show how this tale and its lessons about Chaucer's own understanding of gendered labor, sexual assault, and discursive power challenge recent conclusions about the legal documents relating to Chaucer and Chaumpaigne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish whether, and to what extent, an increase in the public provision of early childhood education and care services (ECEC) has had a positive effect on women's participation in the labour market in Italy and Spain. It does so by compiling panel data using microdata from the European Labour Force Survey (2006–2018), together with secondary sources of information on public ECEC investment made in the two countries. After controlling for unit heterogeneity and reverse causality, the estimated results indicate a positive correlation with the employment rates of women with children and the number of hours worked, in particular for those without a degree, thus indicating the need to address unequal access to publicly-provided ECEC services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of trade liberalisation on female workers in manufacturing using arguably exogenous variation in Indonesia's tariff reductions in the 1990s and 2000s. This study utilises output and input tariff changes to examine two different channels through which trade liberalisation affects women's employment: import competition and imported goods. Our results confirm the findings of previous literature that showed that increased competition driven by a reduction in output tariffs encourages women's employment; however, we also provide new evidence that shows that a reduction in input tariffs may hurt women's employment. We surmise that the latter is driven by importing firms' shifting demands for skilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study contributes to the extant literature by assessing how financial and human developments moderate the incidence of vulnerable female employment on female labour force participation in Cameroon for the period 1987 to 2020 using the generalised least squares (GLS) estimation approach. It is apparent from the findings that human development in the perspective of the human development index (HDI) and broad money supply are necessary and sufficient conditions to moderate vulnerable female employment for female labour force participation. Accordingly, HDI thresholds of between 0.591 and 0.634 are needed to reverse the negative incidence of female vulnerable employment on female labour force participation. Furthermore, a threshold of 30.294 (% of GDP) of broad money supply is also needed to reverse the negative incidence of vulnerable female employment on female labour force participation. Other implications for policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyze the aftereffects of the #MeToo movement to measure the efficacy of digital feminism. Perhaps the most recognizable outcome of the #MeToo movement is forcing a once-taboo subject of workplace sexual harassment into the limelight. The digital phenomenon prompted federal and state courts across the United States to navigate a seemingly new terrain of contributing to broader institutional change in reducing sexism. Yet, four years after the two-word hashtag ricocheted through social media, one pressing question remains: Did the benefits of the #MeToo movement produce changes for female workers in the United States most vulnerable to facing gender-based violence or harassment in the workplace? The study first identifies the factors that often put women at greater risk of sexual harassment in the workplace and determines women in authority and low-wage workers as victims who may be more frequent targets. The article explores the question of gender violence and a lack of access to economic rights as being two sides of the same coin. The research then surveys how governments—in the post-#MeToo era—have attempted to improve gender equality through legal obligations, and whether their attempts were effective in targeting the correct groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The laws that discriminate against women represent one of the most prevalent forms of gender inequality, hindering women's empowerment and economic outcomes. In this regard, this paper sheds light on the relationship between legal constraints on women and various labour force outcomes. Based on a global sample of countries over 1970–2019, the results show that legal gender equality helps countries bridge the gender gap in labour force participation. More-gender equal laws (i) translate into a larger share of women in the workforce, and (ii) do not have a negative effect on that of men. As a result, legal gender equality also boosts labour force participation on aggregate. These patterns are long-lasting for upwards of 10 years. The findings point to a win-win situation: As countries repeal the laws that discriminate against women, which could be achievable in the shorter term, they can attain more inclusive and higher economic growth. This is even more important in the post-Covid-19 period, considering the adverse effects of the pandemic on gender inequality and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing evidence shows that the COVID-19 pandemic led to larger employment losses for working women in India. This article examines the heterogeneity that underlies these trends by studying the impact of income shocks due to the COVID-19 induced national lockdown (April–May 2020) on women's employment. Using individual-level panel data and a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the imposition of the lockdown and accounts for seasonal employment trends, the study finds that women in households facing a hundred percent reduction in men's income during the lockdown were 1.57 pp (27 percent) more likely to take up work after restrictions eased (June–August 2020). These results are predominant in poorer and less educated households. However, these positive employment trends are largely transitory as the effect on women's employment reduces to 13 percent in these households during September–December 2020. These findings underscore the use of women's labor as insurance during low-income periods by poorer households. Women's labor acts as insurance during periods of men's income loss. The increase in labor market participation is only observed for married women. Rural women participate in less-secure casual agricultural labor. Urban women access more secure fixed-wage work and self-employment. Increase in women's labor force participation is mostly transitory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of involuntary part-time work among women has increased sharply. Scholars have demonstrated its links with diminished career opportunities, deteriorated working conditions, and low pay at an individual level. However, less attention has been paid to the effects of these contracts on economic security at the household level. This article investigates to what extent women being in part-time work involuntarily hinders their household's ability to attain reasonable living standards and examines whether this would be any different if women were in part-time employment voluntarily. The results show that part-time work in itself does not necessarily constitute a threat to household economic security, but when it is involuntary, part-time employment jeopardizes a household's financial well-being. This occurs in countries that deregulated peripheral corners of their labor markets, or "dualized" countries such as Italy, Spain, and France, and fully liberalized countries, such as Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Dualization refers to application of deregulation in peripheral corners of labor markets, increasing the precariousness of only certain categories of workers. In dualized and fully liberalized European countries, women's involuntary part-time work threatens households' economic security. It is the involuntary nature of part-time work, and not just reduced work hours, which lowers household economic security. Countries should implement forms of monetary support for low-work-intensity households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between types of employment and wages by gender and gender pay gaps among permanent, temporary, and informal workers. There are substantial gender inequalities in bargaining, and these inequalities are argued to be more prevalent for temporary and informal jobs. Hence, larger wage penalties for women in such positions are expected. Moreover, the inverse association between wages and non-permanent contracts is larger for low-paid women. To this end, the study employs unconditional quantile regression techniques and counterfactual decomposition analysis, and accounts for selection bias. The dataset is based on labor force surveys over the period 2005–19 in Turkey and focuses on private sector employees. The findings highlight the disproportionate impact of temporary and informal employment on women's earnings and suggest that employment type can be a contributing factor to the gender pay gap in Turkey, particularly for low wage groups. In Turkey, employment opportunities, social norms, and gender roles limit women's bargaining power. Gender inequalities in bargaining can vary significantly across employment types. Women employees with temporary or informal jobs suffer from larger pay penalties. Residual gender pay gaps are larger for low-paid temporary and informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facilitating mothers' work–family reconciliation upon their return to work can be considered a viable means of enhancing women's overall employment participation. This study examined return-to-work reasons among mothers with a one-year-old child, how these reasons are related to mothers' background characteristics, work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) and whether having a partner home caring for the child protects against such conflicts. Results based on survey data collected from Finnish working mothers (N = 573) in 2016 showed four dimensions of return-to-work reasons: personal importance of work, work- and career-related worries, dissatisfaction with stay-at-home mothering and convenient work/childcare conditions. Higher personal importance of work was associated with lower levels of WFC and FWC, whereas higher work- and career-related worries were related to higher WFC and FWC. Higher dissatisfaction with stay-at-home mothering was associated with higher WFC and higher convenient work/childcare conditions with lower WFC. Having a partner on care-related leave did not protect against the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often assumed that parental union dissolution leads to more egalitarian gender ideologies among children. Yet evidence on variations in gender ideologies by family structures is scant and based mostly on cross-sectional data. This study offers a closer examination of whether any effect of parental union dissolution can be explained by parents restructuring work and care responsibilities along more egalitarian lines after separation. Drawing on longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, this study applies fixed-effects panel models to estimate the effects of parental union dissolution on gender ideologies of 6,577 adolescents between ages 11 and 14. Parental separation is found to result in more egalitarian gender ideologies toward female employment among boys but not among girls. In line with the role restructuring argument, the positive effect of separation on egalitarianism is driven by boys, whose fathers had rarely had full responsibility for childcare before separation. By highlighting differential effects and possible mechanisms, the findings offer a more nuanced understanding of the implications of increasing deinstitutionalization of family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use sequence analysis on data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (1998–2019) to investigate trajectories of women's labour market participation in the eight years after first childbirth. We pay special attention to the type of employment through which mothers participate in the labour market, distinguishing between regular full-time employment, non-regular employment, self-employment, and non-employment. After creating employment sequences, we use cluster analysis to reveal patterns of employment trajectories and average marginal effects derived from multinomial logistic regression to identify women's characteristics on the distinct trajectories. We find that women of younger cohorts are less likely to solely focus on family and childcare in the years after childbirth. However, their chances of steady work in regular jobs did not increase. Instead, they are more likely to be on unsteady pathways, combining childcare with regular or non-regular jobs. Our results suggest that increases in females' employment might be partly attributed to mothers' higher probability to obtain precarious non-regular work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural understandings of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault have shifted considerably since the 1960s in the United Kingdom and more widely. This article investigates how changing discourses around sexual abuse, harassment and assault are navigated by British women in later life when they narrate experiences that occurred in their youth in the 1960s and early 1970s. It identifies six sites of youth that are relevant to understanding how women narrate experiences of sexual violence: home; school; local outdoor places; workplaces; heterosexual intimacies; independent travel. These sites are associated with different points on a 'girl to woman' register, tracing a pathway from the immaturity of girlhood, through the liminal state of young womanhood, into maturity. How interviewees positioned themselves on this register reflects how they understood their youthful selves in different sites, and their past experiences of unwanted sexual attentions. While gender inequality is understood to have limited women's education and employment opportunities in youth, it is surprisingly absent from narratives of sexual violence. In attending to this absence, we argue that what is at stake for the women in how they navigate shifting cultural discourses is narrating a version of themselves that is agentic and morally responsible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With only 32% of women in the labor market, Guatemala has one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation (FLFP) in the Latin America and Caribbean region and in the world. We explore information from different micro data sets, including the most recent population censuses (2002 and 2018) to assess the drivers of recent progress. Between 2002 and 2018, FLFP increased from an average of 26% to 32% nationwide. This increase was partly explained by increases in the school attainment of women, reduction in fertility and the country's structural transformation towards services. However, a large part of the increase remains unexplained. Exploring 2018 data, we show that social norms, attitudes towards women and public policies are important determinants of FLFP. The analysis suggests that, taken together, these factors can all become an important source of increased participation of women in the labor market moving forward1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One explanation of increasing gender earnings inequality during China's marketization is the increasing representation of women in industries and occupations in which, on average, earnings are declining. I argue that focusing on the average relationship between feminization and earnings is insufficient to understand complex changes in gender inequality during this period. I hypothesize that the feminization-earnings relationship may vary by industry because of differences in devaluation, social closure, and earnings-setting mechanisms. The hypotheses are tested using data from the China Household Income Project (1988– 2013) in industry-province level fixed-effects models. Results support the hypotheses that focus on industry-specific contexts. Specifically, feminization is not negatively associated with earnings in state-monopolized industries, where earnings are protected, and finance-insurance industries, where high-skilled female-typed skills have been increasingly in demand. I discuss implications for understanding segregation amongst the highly educated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes a case study approach to shed light on the work of female managerial staff in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the care and medical sector more broadly. It takes as its point of departure an example of conflict between the Infirmary's matron and a member of the committee of subscribers in order to examine the complex workplace relations in an institution increasingly responsible for healthcare provision for the poor in the city of Edinburgh. It explores contemporary assumptions about gendered patterns of work, care and housekeeping tasks and the implications of this normative framework for female staff and their personal, professional, and familial lives. It argues that the expanding sector of institutionalised care proved a space in which women found avenues to develop life-long careers in line with assumptions about gendered work, gaining occupational identities and financial independence. Finally, it provides evidence of complex welfare strategies and patterns of familial relations that pose challenges to standing assumptions about life-cycle work patterns and the relationship between women's employment, marital and familial status, and residency arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores new pathways to women's empowerment, including household structure, family support, satisfaction and self-esteem, and trust in institutions and politicians, and their impact on labor market participation, with a specific focus on gender differences. Using a microeconomic database of 7,860 individuals from North Africa and employing a Probit model, we find that gender significantly influences labor market participation. Surprisingly, our results reveal that education operates in an unexpected direction in the North African region, confirming the "MENA paradox". Moreover, household structure's impact on labor decisions varies by gender, as gender norms prevalent in male-dominated societies hinder women's labor market participation, leading to a "marriage penalty." In a similar vein, our estimations reveal a significant positive correlation between men's belief that "men should have greater job rights than women during scarce work periods" and their labor force participation, shedding light on the influential role of gender norms in North Africa. Our study emphasizes the critical role of networking, social capital, and how North Africans' perception of political life impedes their labor force participation. As for policy implications, our contribution illuminates new pathways for women's empowerment, advocating for comprehensive legislative reforms to promote gender equality and foster inclusive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace gender inequality remains a major cause of workplace and employment disadvantage for women, particularly in traditionally male-dominated industries. We draw on a study of the Australian transport and logistics industry to examine the conundrum that despite growing awareness of, pressure against, and supposedly increasing policy action against workplace gender inequality, little progress has been made over many decades. This study is premised on the view that understanding, and addressing, the root cause is the key to effective solutions. We applied Wynn's executive ideology on gender inequality theoretical framework to investigate the core factors sustaining workplace gender inequalities in the industry. We find that particular unconscious biased executive conceptualisations of workplace gender inequalities shape organisational gender policies. Consequently, instead of eradicating, they reinforce and reproduce embedded attitudes and processes through the policies they adopt. We argue that to effectively address workplace gender inequality, it is the organisation and the industry, rather than the individual and society that must be the primary focus of executive strategy and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender equality in Indonesia is approximately at the level you would expect given the country's level of development. Indonesia has more gender inequality than some neighbouring countries and less than others; and less than in the vast majority of Muslim-majority nations worldwide, regardless of income level. Women's economic participation is, however, low relative to Indonesia's level of development. Female labour force participation is low as many women leave the workforce when they get married and have children, particularly in the formal sector as formal sector employers do not generally offer flexible workplace conditions that would increase their ability to retain female employees. Social norms that position mothers as the main caregiver play an additional important role in women's low economic participation. Public information campaigns that challenge people's perceptions of gender norms are likely to be an important component of efforts to increase women's economic participation. Greater female economic participation has payoffs in terms of increased household incomes. By contributing to household income and reducing economic stress within the household, greater female labour force participation is also likely to reduce family violence and so lead to happier home and family lives. A focus on increasing women's economic empowerment would be farsighted as the country looks to recover from the pandemic and lay the groundwork for a dynamic future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the mid-nineteenth century, the Birmingham pen factories supplied the world with steel pens. The industry was completely reliant on the high productivity levels and compliance of its predominantly female workforce. Accounts written by nineteenth-century factory visitors lauded the clean light factories and the manufacturers' care for their employees. However, by piecing together factory inspector reports, oral accounts and union records, a different picture emerges. The women worked under relentless pressure, pay was poor, and a culture of fines and deductions prevailed. Physical and mental health problems were also commonplace, with women suffering debilitating injuries. The pen manufacturers amassed vast fortunes, and staunchly resisted regulation and the formation of a women's trade union in the 1890s, which threatened their lucrative business models. The reliance placed on accounts written by nineteenth-century commentators, and the image of respectability and benevolence they created has obscured the negative aspects of the women's employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment vulnerability is considered as working under inadequate conditions. This research examined the impact of employment vulnerability on earnings with special reference to gender-based differences. Analyses were based on panel data for 2010–2013 and 2016 from the household survey. A panel data fixed-effects model with instrumental variable within the Lewbel (2012) method was applied to estimate an earnings equation. Results indicates negative impact of employment vulnerability on earnings. Women experienced this negative effect more severely. Given these empirical findings, government labour-market policy should not focus on increasing employment alone, but should also address the issue of vulnerability of employment, improvement of working conditions, and expanding employment opportunities for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender ideology promoted within Saudi political culture constructs a model of the 'ideal Muslim woman'. This ideal woman is a wife and a mother whose place is in the private sphere, and men are her guardians. Women who remain in their homes, raising the next generation and preserving the traditional values, constitute the quintessential emblem of the unique Saudi national identity. Based on a critical analysis of some 30 Saudi novels written between 1980 and 2000, this study focuses on the changes in the model of the ideal Muslim woman, alongside changes in Saudi attitudes toward women's education and employment. I argue that whereas the regime cultivated the traditional perception of the ideal woman and conservative attitudes toward women's education and employment, the novels presented and constructed hybrid perceptions of these issues, and gradually developed a sharply critical perspective on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]