Women’s Opportunities and Challenges in Sub-Saharan African Job Markets

IMF Working Papers, June 13, 2016

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Uses household survey data to analyze determinants of the gender gap in the labor market and its welfare implications for five SSA countries.
Confirms that education opens opportunities for women to escape agricultural feminization and engage in formal wage employment.
These opportunities for women to access wage employment diminish when women marry—a disadvantage that becomes increasingly relevant as countries develop and urbanization progresses.
Opening a household enterprise offers women an alternative avenue to escape low-paid jobs in agriculture, but the increase in per capita income is lower than for male-owned household enterprises.
Concludes that improving women’s education needs to be supported by measures to allow married women to keep their jobs in the wage sector.

Empirical approach: multinomial logit models with propensity score matching method.
Data: household survey data for five Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.
Focus: transitions across employment sectors (agriculture, household enterprise, formal wage employment) and associated welfare implications.

Complement education improvements with measures that enable married women to retain employment in the wage sector.
Support household enterprise development for women while addressing the income gap between female-owned and male-owned household enterprises.
Address structural and social constraints linked to marriage and urbanization that reduce women’s access to formal wage employment.

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