Female Labour Force Participation Across SAARC Countries Using Dynamic Panel Model

Abstract

The paper examines the trends of female labour force participation and gender disparity across groups of countries and the SAARC Nations. The objective of the paper is to examine the relationship between female labour force participation rate of the age group of 15–64 years and GDP per capita, fertility rate, survival rate and their lag effect, life expectancy and average years of schooling which includes primary, secondary and tertiary schooling over the period from 2000 to 2018. The panel data have been created by taking the time-series countrywise data from International Labour Organisation statistics (ILO modelled estimates). The study tries to analyse the effect of the log of per capita GDP, human capital stock for the female population and other variables using GMM estimates on Dynamic Panel Model setup for SAARC nations (excluding Bhutan and Maldives). This study uses the lag value of the log of GDP per capita as an instrumental variable to get an efficient estimator in a Dynamic Panel Model setting.