Search Results (29)

This paper examines the effects of inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the female employment rate in the economy and the share of female employment across sectors. The empirical analysis is implemented through the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) System estimator for dynamic panel models using different empirical specifications and FDI openness indicators. The main results show that the overall effects of inward FDI on the national female employment rate are not statistically significant. However, they reveal that inward FDI has promoted the share of female employment in the service sector and has led to decreases in the share of female employment in agriculture. The FDI effects on the share of female employment in the industrial sector are found to be statistically insignificant. These results are generally supported when running the empirical analysis through alternative FDI openness indicators. Also, supplementary analysis reveals some variations in the magnitude of these effects over different national income categories. The findings in this paper emphasize FDI’s gendered influences in the labour market. They are consistent with the prevalence of macroeconomic channels through which inward FDI impacts female employment across sectors, and they encompass the underlying implications of various counteracting microeconomic factors. Full article

This research paper delves into the complexities migrant women face within the UK labour market, with a specific focus on the digital economy’s role as both a barrier and a conduit for employment opportunities. Migrant women in the UK encounter dual barriers to labour market entry: systemic challenges rooted in migration and gender biases, and the digital divide that exacerbates access and inclusion issues within the burgeoning digital economy. Through an exploratory descriptive analysis, this study explores how digitalism—defined as the integration of digital technologies into economic and societal practices—circumvents traditional labour market entry barriers such as languages barriers. By setting out the grounds for a potential hypothesis and further research in the era of AI, this paper underlines how through the implementation of AI tools, traditional barriers such as language barriers are eliminated in the digital labour market. Full article

The 2021 census data in Australia show that a higher proportion of Bangladeshi Muslim women in Australia have postgraduate degrees compared to the broader female population. They are also more likely to have a bachelor’s degree when compared to their counterparts in the wider female cohort. However, the unemployment rate for Bangladeshi Muslim women is more than twice as high as that of the general female population. While a comparison between higher educational attainment and lower labour participation raises the question of whether the goal of higher education is indeed labour participation and the dilemma of valuing education solely based on its economic returns, nonetheless, the disparity alarms curiosity to investigate the reasons. The existing research on Muslim women in Australia reveal a complex web of external and internal multilayered intersecting factors that influence migrant women’s labour participation and makes them more susceptible to financial vulnerabilities. Utilizing qualitative methods in analysing fieldwork data from ongoing PhD research, this paper underscores the critical need for a nuanced understanding of internal cultural, domestic, and religious factors to address the unique challenges faced by this demographic in their labour market participation in Australia. Full article

Demographic changes have led to an increase in older people in prisons. Whereas the rehabilitative process of younger offenders is geared towards their reintegration into the labour market, successful ageing should be a policy aim for older prisoners. This study explores how older incarcerated persons view their ageing. A qualitative study using a written survey with only the single question What does ageing in prison mean to you? was conducted in Bavaria, Germany. A total of 64 prisoners (61 male, 3 female) supplied answers varying in length from a few words to several pages. The thematic analysis revealed that together with health concerns, social relations and everyday activities, the uncertainty of the future was a central focus point for the older adults in prison. The authors propose that a positive vision of the future needs to be included in any model of successful ageing. If successful ageing is used as an aim for older prisoners, more attention needs to be paid to support interventions during and after the release process. Full article

Open-mindedness (OM) is one of the select groups of 21st-century soft skills that are lacking in the university curricula. Our aim was to analyse the OM level of our university students and study the influence of gender and age on OM. To do so, we used an ex post facto experimental design, a snowball sampling technique, an OM questionnaire administered to 493 students and statistical techniques of data mining and multiple linear regression. The results show medium–low levels of OM and higher scores in those below 49 years of age and female gender. The variable that most influenced the variability of OM was age (82%), compared to gender (18%). The practical implications of these results aim to promote a more inclusive, active and higher-quality university education that integrates OM, together with other competencies, to make our students more competitive academically and favour their entry into the labour market. Full article

Throughout history, women have struggled to find their place in the labour market. Their participation in the labour market is usually characterised by worse working conditions; they tend to work in lower-paid jobs, under worse social conditions, and in the vast majority of cases their work in the household is not credited. Women make up half of the world’s population, and their non-participation in the labour force has negative consequences for economic growth. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of women’s participation in the labour market on living standard in the European Union. Data on women’s participation in entrepreneurship and politics were also analysed as part of this work. Panel data analysis was conducted for the period 2009–2022 for 27 members of the European Union, using fixed and random effects. The results show that long-term unemployment has a negative impact on GDP per capita. Moreover, a higher share of women in parliament and better education of women is confirmed to be crucial for GDP per capita growth. Failure to include women could have serious consequences for economic growth. The key to success is education and social change that enable women to play the same role as men in the labour market. Full article

By analysing the childcaring experiences of female skilled workers from South Korea (hereafter, Korea) in Germany, this paper maintains that the challenges in labour market participation for highly skilled women, and especially those with children, should be understood in the context of their encounters with similar and different care and employment regimes between their home and host countries. On the theoretical level, this research confirms the argument that the migration of highly skilled workers should be contextualized not from a neoclassical perspective in which the maximization of economic profits takes priority, but from an institutional point of view in which social and cultural norms, practices, and policies in both the home and host societies are taken into consideration. Specifically, through a series of in-depth interviews conducted with skilled female migrants from Korea, this paper highlights the significance of taking the function of similar and different caring and employment regimes into account in explaining the challenges faced by highly skilled migrant women in labour market participation. On the empirical level, this paper sheds light on the migration experiences of skilled women from Asia as well as the (dis)integration processes of newcomers from third-national countries in Germany, with a focus on female migrants from Korea. Full article

In this article, we intend to understand and discuss how immigrant men and women living in Portugal perceive their contributions to the performance of unpaid work and how they try to deal with the situation of the greater burden on women. To this end, a qualitative methodology was used to conduct an exploratory study with 10 focus groups of immigrant men and women in five regions of the country: North, Centre, Lisbon, Alentejo and Algarve. The participants, 43 females and 27 males, were aged between 19 and 80 years. From the discourse of the immigrant participants in this study, it could be concluded that the division of unpaid work between immigrant women and men is not equal, as their statements evidenced a greater responsibility and overload on women. From a traditional vision of gender roles, a persistent dichotomy of two worlds could be perceived, based on a “naturalized” vision of the social roles of gender and on a distribution grounded in biological differences. In parallel, discourses show a change in the sharing of household chores and childcare. However, this does not always occur regularly and appears very much associated with the entry of women into the paid labour market. Full article

The aim was to identify the determinants of female labour participation and willingness to work in one of the poorest agricultural areas of the Ecuadorian Andes with a high indigenous population. A stratified random sample of 268 women by parish was used to collect the information. Social, demographic, and economic variables, as well as norms, values, beliefs, and social structure were consulted. A hypothesis test of means was used to identify possible differences in cultural variables. In addition, the identification of the determinants of labour market insertion was estimated through discrete choice models (logit), selecting the one that best classified the data by means of the confusion matrix. Significant differences were identified in the beliefs analysed based on prejudice towards women’s work (gender roles), attitudes towards children, and intersectionality (discrimination based on ethnicity) by estimating mean differences, considering education, marital status, ethnicity, and labour insertion as grouping variables. The results of the estimations indicate that female labour force participation depends on age, marital status, experience, number of children, education, ethnicity, head of household, social structure (ethnicity), and dimensions of beliefs and values. Willingness to work is explained by attitude towards children, experience, and age. Beliefs and social structure can therefore enhance female labour. Full article

This paper contributes to the literature on the effects of adverse economic conditions on gender differences in the labour market by assessing how COVID-19, a global trigger for a critical adverse condition, impacted gender differences in the labour market in a country with pronounced discrimination and inequality in the labour market. In fact, the paper investigates how the personal characteristics of women and men affected their likelihood of losing jobs during and before COVID-19 in South Africa. Using the database of the National Income Dynamics Study-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) and NIDS wave 5 dataset and based on logit regression, the paper finds that personal characteristics such as tertiary education had a negative effect on job losses among females. Moreover, the results show that, compared to male workers, female workers were the most affected by the pandemic due to the lockdown regulation that affected many households’ behaviour. Full article

Italian university students face an uncertain future characterised by a competitive neoliberal academic environment with high demands and a weak labour market that often cannot hire those who are best qualified. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated students’ uncertainty and negatively affected their well-being. The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of academic life during the pandemic and to examine the relationship between study load, reduced academic performance, internet addiction, academic self-efficacy, and engagement and emotional exhaustion. A sample of university students (N = 10,298) from 11 Italian universities completed a self-report questionnaire about their academic and personal lives between May and June 2021. We performed two multiple linear regressions and one ANOVA to highlight gender differences. Results indicate that female students reported lower levels of engagement and academic self-efficacy, and higher levels of exhaustion and study demands compared to male students, while older students generally appear to exhibit higher levels of well-being. Study load, reduced academic performance, and internet addiction showed a negative association with engagement, particularly the first two, and a positive association with exhaustion, while self-efficacy was positively associated with engagement and negatively associated with exhaustion. The results suggest the need to introduce additional forms of support, such as psychological support, internet addiction awareness courses or counseling services. Full article

To begin with, Sustainable Development Goals are of tremendous importance in all areas, being seen as vital aims in all domains, which makes them indispensable when it comes to addressing the particularities of the labour market these days. Subsequently, human resources occupy a distinctive and unique position when referring to the implications derived from targeting Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the context represented by the period specific to the COVID-19 pandemic and the international events that followed immediately after that. This study investigates the work motivation of individuals, and whether they would be willing to work more hours if they are paid. Motivation and attitudes towards working more hours might be affected by several factors, and they are important contributors to business performance. Not only business performance is to be affected, but this is also a part of Sustainable Development Goals where labour market conditions and productivity concerns are addressed, along with several other factors. Using the Quarterly Labour Force Survey from 2017 to 2022 that is conducted by Statistics South Africa, this study attempts to shed light on individual preferences for working more hours in the case of South Africa. Considering the dichotomous dependent variable, a binary response model is utilised to explore the determinants of such behaviour. Findings of the probit model reveal that socio-demographic factors such as gender, marital status, education level, and work experience are important indicators to explain this preference. More precisely, being female increases the likelihood of willingness to work more hours if paid by 1.1 percentage points, and being never married increases that probability by 2.7 percentage points. Within education categories, the highest coefficient in magnitude, having tertiary education decreases the probability of willingness to work more hours by 8.2 percentage points. As an important labour market indicator, one more year to commence working increases the probability of willingness to work more hours by 0.4 percentage points. Full article

South Africa has been exposed to climate change and has been experiencing associated extreme climatic events such as droughts, floods, and heat waves. These have impacted water and fuel sources, habitats, human health, and economic productivity. Poorer populations and particularly females are more affected. The main objective of this study is therefore to assess gender inequalities in employment resultant from the effects of climate change and extreme climatic events. The study employs binary, ordered, and multinomial logistic models to analyse the effects on employment, intensity of employment and the effects in economic sectors, respectively. The study computes temperature deviations from its long-run mean as climate change variable and uses the Keetch–Byram Drought Index and number of heatwave days per year as proxies for extreme climatic events. Data for the work are from the South African Weather Services database and the National Income Dynamic Survey. The findings suggest that climate change reduces the probability of being employed more for males than females, but extreme events have more negative effects on female employment than males. We suggest that while climate change mitigations and adaptation measures geared towards the labour market should take priority in general, when extreme climate events occur, labour market support measures should weigh more towards females. Full article

Background: Low-wage labour migration is an increasing determinant of global health, associated with risks of exploitation, abuse, and unsafe conditions. Despite efforts to prevent irregular migration and initiatives to warn individuals of the risks of trafficking, many migrants still opt for irregular channels, particularly women seeking jobs as domestic workers. Ethiopia is one of the largest source countries for female migrants entering the domestic labour market in the Middle East. This qualitative study explored migration decision making by Ethiopian women traveling to the Middle East for domestic labour, focusing on the use of irregular channels. Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with policy stakeholders, migration recruiters, and returnee domestic workers. Results: We identified three main themes that help explain decision making by female migrants and their communities. First, women were not always clear whether they were using legally approved processes, particularly because of the range of individuals involved in arranging migration plans. Second, irregular migration was seen to be quicker and easier than regular migration procedures. Third, study participants believed the risks between irregular and regular migration were similar. Conclusion: Our study highlights challenges associated with antitrafficking initiatives that discourage irregular migration and suggests new perspectives to address the health risks linked to labour migration. Full article

This study examines sustainability and gender dynamics of coffee value-chain development intervention in Ethiopia. The data were collected from male and female farmers and other stakeholders using key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and a questionnaire survey. The study found that some of the introduced technologies/practices were adopted and sustained whereas others were dropped or adapted depending on technical, institutional, and socio-economic factors. The value-chain intervention was generic and not gender-sensitive. Although the intervention generated positive changes and benefits for all household members (by improving coffee quality, market access, and their income), it had mixed outcomes for women. Although women were not primarily targeted by the intervention, their increased involvement in coffee harvesting and processing fostered women’s skills, confidence, and decision-making power. However, some of the new technologies/practices required additional labour, while others were labour saving and eased their work. As a result of increasing the wholesale trading of coffee, the role for marketing largely shifted to men. This study underscores the need for a proper gender analysis and embedding gender-sensitive approaches in designing development interventions to ensure women’s fair representation, and thus equitable and sustainable benefits. Such efforts should entail a paradigm shift from production to promoting women’s role and integration into the entire value chain, as well as improving their access to productive resources and services. Moreover, value-chain development interventions should consider technical, institutional, social, and economic factors that could influence their effectiveness and sustainability. Full article