Interaction between agricultural production, female employment, renewable energy, and environmental quality: Policy directions in context of developing economies

Abstract

The current study empirically explores the interaction between agricultural production, female employment, consumption of renewable energy, and carbon dioxide emissions in Pakistan. We have used annual data from 1991 to 2015, extracted from the World Bank database. The findings of this study establish an inverse and significant connection between agricultural production, female employment, consumption of renewable energy, and CO2 emissions during empirical estimations through the ARDL model and robust analysis. This negative connection indicates that adding value in agricultural production, increasing level of female employment and increasing share of renewable energy consumption help reduce CO2 emissions in Pakistan. Additionally, the residual outcomes confirm no serial correlation, no heteroskedasticity, and no stability problem. Furthermore, this study proposes important policy recommendations to mitigate environmental CO2 emissions. For instance, the government should encourage and incentivize farmers to use advanced types of machinery during the agriculture production process. The wage difference between men and women should be minimized, and employment protection policies for women should be introduced by the government to provide a sense of work security to women. The government should provide a special reward system for those farmers who use renewable energy sources instead of using conventional energy sources.