Technological Advancement and the Evolving Gender Identities: A Focus on the Level of Female Economic Participation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This study investigates how technological advancement improves gender identity by means of

On the Relationship between Globalisation and the Economic Participation of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Third, as recently documented by Efobi et al (2016), concerns related to female unemployment and growing poverty that are facing them are glaring policy issues confronting the female gender on the one hand and on the other hand, raise relevant concerns to African governments and development practitioners. Some narratives form the World Bank (2015) and the International Labour Organisation (2013) demonstrate that in SSA, the percentage of the female gender employed in the informal economic sector is comparatively higher when seen in the light of their male counterparts 2 .…”

“…The female labour force participation rate is used as our primary outcome variable because it is generally considered a better indicator of economic participation, unlike the unemployment rate. Also, it is more representative of the number of women that are involved in economic activities (Efobi et al, 2016). The selection of additional control variables is mainly influenced by consensus in literature on some of the factors that determine EPW.…”

“…The selection of additional control variables is mainly influenced by consensus in literature on some of the factors that determine EPW. For example, we control for real GDP per capita (PPP adjusted); average years of schooling for population that are over 15 years old (see Eckstein & Lifshitz, 2009;Steinberg & Nakane, 2012); fertility rate (see Bloom et al, 2009;Mishra & Smyth, 2010); and the type of political institution of the country, measured as democratic freedom (see Efobi et al, 2016). These control variables are assumed to be conservatively related to the determinants of EPW.…”

“…Firstly, on the low participation of women in formal economic sectors, while women have traditionally been the most vulnerable group in the labour market, such vulnerability is comparatively most relevant in Africa (see Efobi et al, 2016) 1 . According to the narrative, the female is for the most part, absorbed in informal economic sectors, notably: by engaging in small scale sole business proprietorships and smallholding farming activities (Ellis et al, 2007;FAO, 2011;Tandon & Wegerif, 2013;Ramani et al, 2013).…”

Doing business and inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…We briefly discuss the aforementioned contemporary literature in two strands. On the one hand, recent inclusive development literature in Africa has focused on, inter alia : poverty growth transformations (Thorbecke, 2013; Fosu, 2015); determinants and measurements of inclusive development (Anand et al , 2013; Mlachila et al , 2017); the Azzimonti et al (2014) theorisation of globalisation-induced inequality for developed countries that has been partly confirmed in Africa (see Asongu et al , 2015); poverty correlates (Anyanwu, 2013, 2014), and gender inequality (Elu and Loubert, 2013; Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007; Baliamoune-Lutz and McGillivray, 2009; Efobi et al , 2016).…”