Abstract
Woman is a key and an important contributor to development, therefore, enhancing her empowerment is a vital driver and a key element for a development process that is sustainable and continuous. Measuring the impact of both of cumulative woman empowerment, and educational empowerment (educational gap) on the participation of women in the labor force is crucial for pinpointing the fragility in woman empowerment efforts in the Arab region. This paper aims at investigating the impact of both women cumulative empowerment and educational gap on the participation of women in the labor force in the Arab countries. The study sample includes Arab countries that are included in the Global Gender Gap reports during the years (2006-2015). Using panel data, several econometrics models were estimated. Evidently, for the whole sample: both of women cumulative empowerment and the percentage of working women in the population have a significant positive impact on women’s participation in the labor force, meanwhile there was a negative impact of the population growth rate, and a both ways impact - positive and negative- of educational gender gap. After dividing Arab countries according to income groups, it is found that, for both high-income and lower middle income countries, there is a positive significant impact for women empowerment on women’s participation in the labor force. However, the results do not support any significant impact for women empowerment on women’s participation in the labor force in the upper middle income countries. It was also found that the proportion of working women out of the population was statistically significant for the three income levels. Also the results do not support any significant impact for both of the educational gap and population growth on women’s participation in the labor force.
Highlights
One of the goals of sustainable development in the Arab countries is to increase the participation of women in the labor force and to increase their empowerment
According to the standard model used the study showed that the impact of women's empowerment on their participation in the labor force varies among countries by income groups, In the high-income countries group, increasing cumulative empowerment of women through their health, educational and political support, leads to increase their participation in the labor force, the study showed that at the level of all countries, both the cumulative empowerment index and the percentage of working women in the population had a positive and significant impact on the women participation in the labor force, and that there is a negative impact of the rate of population growth, and a both ways impact - positive and negative- of educational gender gap
After dividing Arab countries according to income groups, it is found that, for both high-income and lower middle income countries, there is a positive significant impact for women empowerment on women’s participation in the labor force
Summary
One of the goals of sustainable development in the Arab countries is to increase the participation of women in the labor force and to increase their empowerment. Hanan Atta Shamlawi: The Impact of Women Cumulative Empowerment and Educational Gap on the Participation of Arabic Women in the Labor-Force their economic participation. Studies have focused on one or more factors that affect the economic contribution of women, an important study has linked women empowerment and their economic contribution by Sultana [11], which emphasized the positive role of both education and women's economic participation using an econometrics model. What distinguishes this study from the previous studies is that it has developed an econometrics model for estimating the contribution of Arab women in the labor force and linking this contribution to the cumulative empowerment of women.
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