Determinants of labour market gender inequalities in Cameroon, Senegal and Mali: the role of human capital and fertility burden

ABSTRACT

This study aims to measure the impact of human capital and fertility on labour market inequalities between men and women, in particular regarding access to the highest-paid jobs, in Cameroon, Mali and Senegal. The findings show that women's chances of attaining the top job segment are worse than men's, even with the same education level. Raising a large family (the “fertility burden”) has a direct negative impact in Mali and Senegal, and an indirect negative impact in Cameroon and Senegal, via its interaction with the education levels (the more children a woman has, the lower her marginal return to education).

RÉSUMÉ

Cette étude, qui porte sur le Cameroun, le Mali et le Sénégal, vise à mesurer l’impact du capital humain et de la fécondité sur les inégalités entre les hommes et les femmes dans le marché du travail, en particulier quant à l’accès aux emplois les mieux rémunérés. Les résultats montrent que les femmes sont moins susceptibles que les hommes d’atteindre le segment supérieur de l’emploi, même à niveau d’éducation identique. Élever une famille nombreuse (le « fardeau de la fécondité ») a un impact négatif direct au Mali et au Sénégal et un impact négatif indirect au Cameroun et au Sénégal par l’intermédiaire de son interaction avec le niveau d’éducation (plus une femme a d’enfants, plus le rendement marginal de son éducation est faible).

KEYWORDS:

• Female labour
• gender inequality
• education return
• fertility
• Africa

Acknowledgements

I thank the participants to the MIMADEM (Migrations, Marché du travail et Dynamiques Démographiques en Afrique subsaharienne) workshop in Dakar in March 2013 for their many comments and suggestions. I especially thank Mr Anaclet Dzossa and Mr Samuel Kelodjoue, from the National Statistical Institute of Cameroon, for their contribution to an earlier version of this study. I acknowledge the remarks, comments and suggestions provided by two anonymous reviewers. All errors remaining in this paper are mine.

Notes on contributor

Mathias Kuépié is researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and associate researcher at DIAL in Paris (a Joint Research Unit of Paris-Dauphine University and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement). He holds a Masters in economics and a PhD in demography. He works mainly on households' socioeconomic and demographic behaviour (fertility, education demand, labour market, living conditions). He also has comprehensive experience in survey design for developing countries.

Notes

1 This rate is estimated, respectively, at 3.6 per cent in Mali, 2.7 per cent in Cameroon and 2.5 per cent in Senegal.

2 Although the HIV pandemic tempers this decrease in Cameroon.

3 Despite the usual differences in the definition of city.

4 Indeed, when fertility is not explicitly considered as an explanatory variable in gender differences, it is included in the error term with all the other omitted variables. It then becomes a simple nuisance parameter, the effect of which is to be neutralised.

5 In the recent Demographic and Health Surveys, there is a more detailed classification on two positions in addition to the classification into seven groups.

6 Given that education is already controlled for.

Additional information

Funding

This study received the financial support of the Agence inter-établissements de recherche pour le développement (AIRD), the Hewlett Packard Foundation and the French Development Agency (AFD), in the framework of the “Tendances démographiques en Afrique subsaharienne : quels ressorts, quelles conséquences?” (DEMTREND) program. The author is grateful to all these institutions.