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Rome, Italy, 22-24 September
1999
Organised by the IUSSP Committee on Gender and Population in collaboration with ISTAT
(Istituto Nazionale di Statistica) and the university of Rome "La Sapienza".
Report
The IUSSP Committee on Gender and Population, in collaboration with ISTAT (Instituto Nazionale di Statistica) and the Dipartimento di Scienze Demografiche of the university of Rome "La Sapienza", organised a Seminar on "Women in the Labour Market in Changing Economies: Demographic Issues" which took place on September 22-24, 1999 in Rome, Italy. The main motivation for the Seminar was to investigate the gender interactions and demographic behaviour which accompany the great increase in women’s labour force participation across the world, occurring under major economic and labour market changes.
Session 1
The first session of the seminar provided an overview of recent changes in women’s labour force participation around the world from two different points of view: Clark and York documented the changes in the labour force participation rates among women of all ages across a wide range of countries and their variation with economic development and examined some aspects of occupational segregation. Joekes analyses women’s experience of globalisation in developing countries.
Clark and York ("Cross-national analysis of women’s labour force activity since 1970") find rising female activity rates for all ages and regions. The estimation of activity rate equations shows that a u shape pattern in the relationship between income and women’s labour force participation can be observed: high rates for the low income countries, declining for the middle income and rising for the high income ones. Higher fertility was associated with lower activity rates. Education had a negative and significant effect in the low-income countries while insignificant in other countries. A high degree of occupational segregation by sex in all countries of the world, across all levels of development and all geographical regions is reported. However, during the past three decades this phenomenon has decreased, especially in the OECD countries.
According to Joekes ("The demographics of female labour supply and immiserisation in developing countries under globalisation"), many women in outward-oriented developing countries owe their livelihoods to international trade, which has increased demand for female labour in the formal sector and, through links with the former, in the informal sector too. In general, unpaid employment has beneficial effects on women’s bargaining position within the household, but evidence suggests that the strongest gender effects of trade expansion occur in the lowest income countries and the beneficial effects for women in the informal sector are not obvious. In Africa where women farm on their own, trade expansion in the recent period has been associated with a shift in distribution of income against women. Regarding the modern services sector, the expansion of foreign investment and the influence of international norms in the business and financial services, encompassed by globalisation, increases the demand for women workers of higher educational attainment. The newly earned female income is beneficial not only from a gender perspective but also because it modifies consumption patterns in ways that lead to improvements in human resources. Nevertheless, the prospects for women to be able to maintain their employment position in export production do not look good on any of the two open economy strategies: high road or low road. The author also argues that the expansion of international trade may lead to unequalising tendencies between and within countries. The reason for these tendencies is that female labour force participation rates would also prolong the period of surplus labour and lower the average wage. Recently basic manufactures have experienced declining terms of trade. Gender discrimination has played a role in this tendency by allowing low wages in these female intensive industries which lead to a low value added in the international market.
Session 2
The second session of the seminar was devoted to women’s employment and demographic issues in countries with rapid economic and political change. The papers included in the session refer to African, Asian and Eastern European countries. Four of the seven countries included (South Africa, Eritrea, Germany and Russia) are recovering from war or major political instability and adapting to a new social situation. The other three session papers refer to countries which have undergone major economic changes (Bangladesh), an economic crisis (Indonesia) or long standing economic hardship (Central African RePUBLIC (CAR) and the Democratic RePUBLIC of the Congo (DRC)). Three of the session papers concentrate on the interrelation of female economic activity and one specific aspect of demographic change: schooling in Indonesia, fertility in the Russian case and single parent households in Germany.
Afar ("Gender, Labour market and demographic change: A case study of women’s entry into formal manufacturing sector of Bangladesh"), documents the substantial labour force growth in Bangladesh from 1974 to 1995, which mainly occurs in the urban areas and encompasses structural change in employment. The study is based primarily on two data sets generated by the author by employing multiple methods of data collection and multi-stage sampling. Independent migration has enabled a large number of women to avail job opportunity created by the formal sector. Family and kinship have, in turn facilitated migration. Most migrant women are unmarried and young. The new income earning opportunities are allowing young women to adopt new roles in the family that grant them recognition and some freedom. The main demographic consequences of this process are marriage deferment and fertility decline. Migrant women also face health and sexual harassment hazards that need to be addressed by policy makers.
Arends and Kauffman ("The effect of the end of apartheid on women’s work, migration and household composition in KwaZulu-Natal") compare the labour market situation of African and Indian women before and after the end of apartheid using longitudinal data from a household survey. They find Indian women have higher educational attainment, live in more urbanised areas and concentrate in professional and clerical work in the manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors. Most African women live in rural areas, work in labourer, service and professional occupations in the domestic, agricultural and manufacturing sectors. The percentage of African women in government is increasing because of the priority given to them by the government, while the percentage of Indian women with regular employment in the private sector is augmenting. Likewise, household structure for African women has changed after the end of apartheid (single generation families became more common and double generation less common), while household structure for Indian women remained constant.
The paper by Arneberg ("A post-war economy: women entering the urban labour market in Eritrea") seeks to analyse the forces behind the increased labour force participation in the urban areas of Eritrea. Estimating a multivariate model, the author finds that necessity is a driving force for women’s labour force participation by reducing their reservation wages. The new demographic setting in Eritrea (almost half of urban households are female headed, divorce rates are rising and, due to labour and forced migration, there is a lack of adult men) has contributed to increasing women’s labour force participation. Although women are clustered in low status jobs with low returns, they have become more important to the overall economic performance. Education is proposed as the way of preventing female headed households from falling into poverty.
Beegle, Frankenberg and Thomas ("Economy in crisis: Labour market outcomes and human capital investments in Indonesia") investigate the outcomes of a recent economic crisis in Indonesia taking place after thirty years of rapid economic growth with significant changes in the labour force and labour market composition, namely, an increasing number of participating women. The authors conclude from their longitudinal analysis that leaving school is not motivated by entrance to the labour market. They also find that changes in the employment status of men whether waged or self employed, affect schooling attainment of older children. However, this impact could not be observed for women. Some impact on younger children’s schooling could be viewed from women entering the informal sector that can be related to childcare issues. After performing a difference in difference test, the authors conclude that maternal employment does not harm schooling attainment of children.
The work by Kikhela ("Contexte économique et évolution du marché d’emploi de la femme en milieu urbain d’Afrique Centrale: cas de Kinshasa (R.D.C.) et de Bangui (R.C.A.)") compares women’s labour market participation in two African capital cities: Kinshasa (R.D.C.) and Bangui (R.C.A.), which have faced economic difficulties and political instability for more than twenty years. In order to obtain resources, the population has adopted new behaviours: the economic participation of young and older women, especially in urban areas, even against tradition, is one of them. Women participate mainly at low professional categories, which do not permit participation in decision taking at national level. The author finds some differences between these two cities: The proportion of working women has increased more rapidly in Kinshasa where they are concentrated mainly in agriculture. Women in Bangui work mainly in the tertiary sector. Female economic participation has favoured the increase in the household size, lowered school participation of children and the early labour force entry of children.
The work by Buchel and Engelhardt ("Relative income position of single parent households in West and East Germany: the role of female labour market participation in the 90s") tries to determine the income situation of single parent households in both parts of Germany, where this type of household has increased, controlling for selective labour behaviour of single mothers. The authors estimate a relative income position of households’ model for each part of Germany from a household survey data. They find that a missing male breadwinner causes severe reductions in the family’s relative income position even after controlling for social status and earnings of women. The similarities found between East and West Germany are striking. Children living with a single mother who was never married face much larger negative effects. The dramatically reduced labour market opportunities of East German women caused by the transformation of the market structure causes the worsening of the relative economic position of the East German single mother households.
Kohler and Kohler ("Fertility decline in Russia after 1990: the role of economic uncertainty and labour market crisis") analyse the recent fertility decline in Russia from a micro and a macro perspective. While the macro analysis, based on aggregate data, suggests that the fertility decline after 1989 is associated with the economic hardship during the transition to a market economy, the micro evidence, from a longitudinal survey, shows that there is no negative association between labour market uncertainty or labour market crises and fertility. Results from logistic regressions show that male unemployment and a high prevalence of unpaid female wages remain positively associated with childbirth. Which means that labour market uncertainty is not negatively related to fertility. The authors suggest that an uncertainty-reduction motive for fertility provides an explanation for the estimated relations between labour market uncertainty and fertility on the micro level.
Session 3
The third session of the seminar dealt with migration and women’s employment. Only one of the four papers refers to international migration (Gallo, Grillo and Strozza) while the other three concentrate on internal migration in two different Chinese cities (Shanghai and Shenzhen) and Vietnam, all of which are experiencing the change from a planned to a market economy. Only the paper about Shenzhen takes into account the place of origin of migrants while the other three concentrate on the destination.
The paper by Gallo, Grillo and Strozza (" Gender and labour market among immigrants in some Italian areas: the case of Moroccans, former Yugoslavians and the Polish") discusses the labour market conditions of foreigners in Italy distinctly by gender and country of origin. Gender and wage differences are analysed in three immigrant communities: Moroccans, former Yugoslavians and the Polish using data from a survey on foreign immigrants and estimating a typical earning function. The pattern of participation in the labour market of immigrant women is determined not only by their country of origin, but also by the extent of their participation in migration choices. The authors conclude that immigrant women can be distinguished in women migrating for work and women migrating to follow men. Labour force participation of women from communities migrating mainly to join their immediate family (Moroccans) is low, structure by sector is similar to men’s and wage gap is due to discrimination. On the other side, labour participation of women from communities migrating for work (Polish and former Yugoslavians) is high and characterised by occupational and geographical segregation that entails a larger wage gap.
With a particular focus on gender and type of migration in Vietnam, Goldstein, Djamba and Goldstein ("Migration and occupation change during periods of economic transition: women and men in Vietnam") examine the impact of migration on occupational mobility, after the introduction of a free market economy (Doi Moi). This economic transformation was accompanied by a relaxation of government controls on spatial mobility. using household survey data, the authors estimate logistic regressions to predict the likelihood of upward mobility for men and women by migration type. They find that even though migration has closed the gender gap in occupational segregation, as more women join previously male dominated occupations, the relative male advantage remains. Freedom of movement and ability to engage in private enterprise have not yet successfully promoted female upward occupational mobility.
The first paper on China (Wang and Shen, "Double jeopardy? Female rural migrant labourers in urban China") focuses in Shanghai, China’s largest metropolis. using micro level data from 1995 surveys, the authors analyse the fate of female rural migrant labourers in two overlapping labour markets: an emerging market-oriented labour market and the remaining of a socialist urban labour market. The statistics from the estimation of their model show that Chinese dual transformation has resulted in a double disadvantage for female migrant labourers. They face the familiar gender discrimination between female and male migrant labourers and, at the same time, they are subject to a second kind of discrimination due to their outsider status.
Liang and Chen’s paper ("Migration, gender and return to education in Shenzhen, China") concentrates in a newly developed urban area of China: Shenzhen. The authors look into the motivation for female migration and the difference between male and female migrants of getting permanent residence (hukou), using data from 1% sample of the 1990 Chinese Census for Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Estimating several regression models, the authors compare the occupational attainment of female and male migrants and the occupational attainment of migrant women with women in the place of origin. One of the findings of the paper is that migration for men and women is motivated mainly by economic reasons. Female migrants are more likely to get urban household registration than male migrants and a better chance of working in professional and managerial jobs. Compared with people at place of origin, female migrants in Shenzhen benefit more from migration than male migrants. However, male migrants with higher education levels are more likely to work in professional and managerial occupations than female migrants in Shenzhen.
Session 4
The topic of the fourth session was PUBLIC Policy and women’s labour market participation. Each of the three papers included in the session is dedicated to a different area of PUBLIC policy: part time employment, poverty and parental leave policies. Two of the papers cover the industrialised world (Bardasi and Gornick on five industrialised countries and Neyer on Austria) while the other paper is dedicated to Mexico, a developing country.
The first paper of the session (Bardasi and Gornick "Part time employment across countries: workers’ choices and wage penalties") analyses the patterns and consequences of part time employment among women across five industrialised countries: Canada, Germany, Italy, united Kingdom and united States, using individual, family and household level data on income, employment and demographic variables from the Luxembourg Income Study. The authors investigate women’s employment choices regarding the three-option decision between non-employment, part time employment and full time employment with a choice model. They found that part time employment is mainly women’s employment. Family composition has a strong influence on employment choices where married mothers show the highest probability of working part time and single women without children show the lowest probability. There was no uniform pattern on the effect of children’s age on women’s employment status. In all countries, "adult dependants" exert strong downward pressures on women’s labour market attachment. They also estimate wage equations to analyse the economic consequences of women’s engagement in part time employment rather than full time employment. Part-time wage penalties were found everywhere, but the source of these differentials varies across countries. In Canada and the U.S. the wage gap is mainly due to a "selection effect" which means that workers are selected into each group in a way that increases the gap. In the uK, the differences are due to observed characteristics while in Germany and Italy there is evidence of pay discrimination.
Parker and Gómez de León (" The impact of anti-poverty programs on female labour force participation and women’s status: the case of Progresa in Mexico") examine the effect of Progresa, a recent (begun in August 1997) large anti-poverty programme on women’s labour force participation. The authors use panel data from the Evaluation Survey of Progresa from before and after the implementation of the programme. Progresa provides monetary educational grants to children under 18 and basic health care for all the members of the family linked to children’s school attendance. It covers now 2.3 million families in 50,000 rural localities of 31 states. The programme has a focus on gender because all the monetary benefits are given directly to the female (mother) of the family. The results show no overall impact of the programme on women’s participation in paid employment, although there is a large significant positive effect on women with higher levels of education and an overall increase in women working in self employment activities. Also, the programme substantially increases women’s decision making in the households, particularly on decisions involving expenditure of household resources.
The study by Neyer ("The gendering effects of parental leave policies") seeks to investigate the effects of changes in the parental leave policies with respect to gender in Austria. In 1974, single mothers unable to resume employment after parental leave were entitled to a benefit equivalent to unemployment assistance. In 1990, parental leave was extended from one to two years and fathers were granted the right to parental leave. The author finds that parental leave policies in Austria have reduced women’s dependency on male income, shifting women’s dependency from private to PUBLIC. Men were found to be less likely to interrupt their employment in order to take care of a child. Comparing the results of men and women, the author concludes that parental leave regulations granted fathers an opportunity to withdraw from the labour market if they wish to reorient themselves professionally, while women in most cases go on parental leave for child care purposes.
Session 5
The fifth session of the seminar deals with the interrelationship between union formation and dissolution and labour market participation. One of the session papers (Cox, Hermsen and Klerman) is related to economic opportunity and union formation for men and women in the U.S. Two of the session papers (Solsona and Houle and Festy, Prokofieva and Mouratcheva) explore the relationship of divorce and female labour participation. The first one deals with the double interaction between these two phenomena in Spain while the second one explores the effects of union dissolution on market participation of men and women in Russia. The last paper of the session (Rios Neto and Oliveira) seeks to look at occupational segregation by sex and marital status in Brazil.
As mentioned before, women’s presence in the paid labour market has been growing during the last few decades. This change may give women greater access to economic independence and affect marriage, childbearing and other demographic variables associated with women. The paper by Cox, Hermsen and Klerman ("Economic opportunities and the transition to marriage among young women") tries to find out whether the decline in marriage among young U.S. women is due to these greater opportunities. The authors are particularly interested in the contextual effect of women’s economic opportunity on the marriage chances of White, African American and Hispanic women during the period 1979-1994. using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and estimating logistic regressions, they find that for all three groups of women, the greater their economic opportunity the greater the probability of delaying marriage. Even though African American women’s estimated economic opportunity is lowest on average compared to that of the other groups of women, it has the largest effect. Also, greater economic opportunity for men significantly lowers the likelihood of later marriage with the greatest impact on African American women. The study shows the need to incorporate measures of women’s economic opportunity with the more familiar men’s opportunity measures when seeking to understand recent declines in marriage in more industrialised countries.
Solsona and Houle (Women’s employment: a determinant factor or a consequence of union dissolution in Spain") explore the relation between women’s employment and union dissolution in Spain for three generations (1936-45, 1946-55 and 1956-65) and in seven regional contexts. They use the Spanish retrospective Socio-demographic Survey and concentrate on women and men born between 1936 and 1965. Double direction between union dissolution and female labour market participation is considered in this paper. The results of the multivariate analysis of marriage disruption indicate that women’s employment is a determinant factor of union disruption: the fact of being continuously employed clearly increases the probability of separation. Men’s occupation has the opposite effect: to be unoccupied is a clear determinant factor of union disruption at early marriage duration. Contextual factors as well as individual characteristics such as high educational level and young age at union have a clear positive effect on union disruption. Regional diversity (with Canary Islands and the Northeast region at the top of the ranking) increases with generation. Variations in relative risks of occupational status on marital disruption by region are only important for men. Men’s precarious position in the labour market is always associated with a higher probability of union disruption.
The consequences of divorce on occupational mobility on men and women are analysed separately by Festy, Prokofieva and Mouratcheva ("The impact of divorce on professional life in a changing society"). The study refers to Russia, a country with a very high rate of women’s activity in a period of economic change, even though the most severe crisis (1998) could not be included. The authors use data from two surveys carried out in Russia in 1993 and 1998. They find that males’ and females’ careers are parallel in the first years of marriage, after that women stagnate while men move higher and higher. In long lasting marriages husbands’ careers exceed wives’ in increasing proportions. After divorce, women perform as well or even better than newly married women do. The opposite is true for men where loneliness has a strong negative impact on professional mobility. The authors conclude that men suffer more than women do from the transition to living alone after the end of a marriage. Thus, the comparative advantage of living together is for men.
Rios Neto and Oliveira ("Occupational sex segregation in Brazil: marital status and market work flexibility") using the Brazilian National Sample Survey seek to measure the occupational sex segregation in Brazil in three different ways: considering all the non-agricultural labour force, dividing the labour force by marital status and dividing the labour force by hours of work and labour market segmentation. Their paper also provides a theoretical discussion on the role of gender relations and women’s work orientation and their relationship with marital status, groups of hours of work and labour market segmentation. The authors highlight two main conclusions of the study: The first one states that the occupational segregation by sex in Brazilian urban occupations has declined over all levels of occupational disaggregation. The second finding is associated with the role of marital status in occupational segregation by sex. The role of marital status is stronger than the one found for groups of hours worked and sector. Accordingly, marital status plays an important role among part-timers and the formal sector.
Session 6
This session was dedicated to fertility, employment and the life Course. A wide range of countries, perspectives and methodologies were covered. Geographical representation was achieved by including three papers on European countries (Norway, Sweden and Italy), two on Latin American countries (Mexico and Argentina), one about an African Country (Egypt), one on an Asian country (Philippines) and one paper on Middle Eastern countries (Jordan, Gaza strip and West bank).
Kulczycki and Juárez ("The influence of female employment and autonomy on demographic behaviour in Egypt") use descriptive analysis and the estimation of five multivariate models on data from the 1995 Egyptian DHS survey to investigate the characteristics of women who are employed and financially empowered. Their main objective is to find the relationship between employment and modern contraceptive use, focusing on married women. The results do not suggest in a straightforward manner that working women are significantly more likely to use modern contraceptives than other women. It is the interaction of employment status with the stage of family formation that helps explain the relationship between employment and contraceptive use. The paper clarifies the importance of the effect of socio-economic variables on the life course on the likelihood of modern contraceptive use.
The paper by Jon Pedersen ("Female labour force participation, employment and fertility in the Middle East: the case of Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan) aims to look at the relationship between fertility and female labour force participation and employment in Jordan, the West bank and Gaza Strip. While the economy of Jordan has experienced economic growth and fairly stable GNP per capita from 1993 to 1995, the other two economies experienced a steady decline in real income per capita. The paper is mainly based on micro data from two surveys: the West Bank and Gaza Strip Demographic Survey and the Jordan Living Conditions Survey. The data suggests women who work come from the richest households. The results of the proportional hazard models estimated by the author lead him to conclude that female labour force participation and education are correlated with fertility decline, in a conventional way. This position is contrary to the view that argued that women in these countries joined the labour force out of poverty (Courbage).
Skrede’s paper ("Gender equality in the labour market-still a distant goal?"), based on data for the total population (register data) focuses on the analysis of the differences in family formation and earned income over the period 1993-1995 by gender and educational attainment for Norwegian birth cohorts born 1961 – 1975. It also seeks to take a closer look at the present state of the process towards gender equity in Norway. The findings of the study confirm that educational attainment and family formation/status are decisive determinants of earned income for both genders. Generally, earned income increases with higher levels of educational attainment for both genders, but considerably more for young males than for young females. High-income differences between men and women with low educational attainment illustrate that educational attainment above the minimum level is more important for young women than for young men, with regard to getting a foothold in the labour market. Also, the fact that women with high educational attainment appear to have the greatest differences on average compared to men indicates that there is still some distance to go before gender equity is reached in the Norwegian labour market. The data also shows that at all levels of educational attainment, men with the responsibility for the support of children have considerable higher average income than men without children, whereas mothers earn considerably less than non-mothers. The structure of these differences indicates that the educational attainment/family formation/labour market behaviour interaction process acts differently for the two genders.
Stanfors and Svensson ("Education, career opportunities and the changing patterns of fertility: a study on 20th century Sweden") use aggregate time series data and data derived from a retrospective Swedish Family Survey to analyse and explain the interactions between education, career opportunities, family policy and fertility in Sweden from an economic-historical perspective within a model of statistical discrimination on segmented labour markets. The main focus of the paper is on the period 1965-1995. Their study shows a substantial change in women’s socio-economic roles together with changing fertility patterns and child-rearing practices. The authors contend that Swedish economic conditions and PUBLIC policy programmes from the 60s and 70s have facilitated the combination of female labour force participation and increased the compatibility between work and family. This increased compatibility between the worker and mother role is the reason why Swedish fertility has been very high at some points in time and has not fallen during the crisis years. However, compatibility is not complete. The utilisation of welfare state benefits aimed at facilitating women’s double roles, i.e., the combination of parental responsibilities and work also seems to have some negative repercussions on labour market opportunities and occupational segregation, even though these are modest compared internationally.
Rampichini and Salvini ("A dynamic study of the work-fertility relationship in Italy") seek to identify whether the interpretation of the work-fertility dynamic relationship changes when gender factors regarding women’s role perception and domestic work division are inserted. Based on event history analysis, a transition rate model for the birth process which is dependent on work condition process as a time dependent covariate, via the principle of conditional independence, is used. unobserved individual factors influencing both the working and fertility paths and the selection process driving to the different final parity are represented in the model by means of two random components, constant in time and from one period to another, but woman-specific. They use individual data from the Fertility and Family Survey (FFS) collected with a life course perspective in Italy during 1995-96. Separate models for each region were estimated. The authors find that there is a weak cohort effect that modifies both the intensity and the timing of the event, common to all the regions. High education level of the woman and her partner reduces the probability of having a child. The education history has a negative effect on the probability of having the first child in the three regions. Three hypothetical trajectories for the first child and three for the second child were constructed from where several conclusions were drawn: the effect of the educational/work process on the first child is that to delay the moment of child bearing, but the final intensity is similar in the three trajectories. The working path changes both the timing and the final intensity of the second child with different effects in each area. To be a worker increases the spacing of the first two births, particularly for women employed in the private sector. The three regions are different in the variables that explain the effect of the job on fertility. In relation to the gender variables, if the partner does not participate in any of the domestic activities, the probability of having a child increases for the North and South regions.
Parrado and Zenteno (" Changes in female labour force participation in Mexico: assessing the role of labour supply, labour demand and the international division of labour explanations") combine micro and macro level analysis to evaluate several theoretical perspectives on women’s labour force participation. The macro level analysis describes societal changes in the Mexican socio-economic setting and population conditions across three cohorts of Mexican women are analysed in the second part of the paper. For the micro level analysis the authors use retrospective information contained in the 1998 Demographic Retrospective Survey (EDER) which allows them to reconstruct individual life course trajectories and relate them to employment decisions, being able to compare them within and across cohorts. Discrete time event history methodologies are applied to model the decision of first time labour market participation and competing risk specification to estimate the effects of entering a particular type of occupation. Their results show that women from both the young and intermediate cohorts, but particularly the former, are more likely to enter paid employment than mature women. As expected, women with higher levels of education are more likely to enter paid employment, with a particularly strong effect of education above ten years. The authors also report a change in the relative importance of marriage and childbearing as constraints on market work: while among mature women marriage was a strong deterrent of labour force participation, among younger women it was the presence of children that mostly limited labour force activities. Membership in the middle cohort decreases the likelihood of entering administrative work, while young women with similar characteristics as mature women have less opportunity to enter professional or administrative work.
Based on longitudinal survey data and 60 in-depth interviews from Cebu (Philippines), the paper by Viswanathan ("Walking the Tightrope: women’s employment strategies following childbirth in Cebu, Philippines") uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to nest employment decisions that relate to labour force participation, location to work and work sector. In the Philippines, female labour force participation has increased sharply, with self-employment as the most popular work choice for women. The study found that female labour force participation decisions are associated with economic necessity and work experience. Location of work decisions are also associated with childcare costs, compatibility of work, transportation costs and human capital variables. In addition to these factors, work decisions are also associated with financial capital, initiative and availability of jobs.
Finally, Cerrutti ("Labour force patterns, gender relations and labour markets in Buenos Aires") focuses on women’s labour force patterns and quality of jobs in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s largest metropolitan area. She combines quantitative analysis based on representative employment surveys and qualitative techniques for in depth interviews in order to identify the relationship between women’s background characteristics, family circumstances and types of jobs on their labour force trajectories. One of the main conclusions of the paper is that mobility in and out of the labour force is strongly related to individual and family characteristics as well as type of job ad labour conditions. Young women or women close to retirement, married women (particularly those with young children at home) and women with low levels of formal education are more likely to work intermittently. Women who are single parents and household heads are more likely to be working and to stay in the labour force for longer periods. The influence of family composition on women’s labour careers is mediated, among other factors, by the socio-economic level of the household. Middle class women have a more stable labour force participation, because they are more committed to their jobs and are able to establish stable domestic arrangements. Labour force instability and informal sector participation are co-determined by a similar set of factors. Thus, it seems that both demand and supply side factors have synergetic effect on women’s labour force mobility.
Carla Pederzini
November 1999