Do Macroeconomic Structures and Policies Shape the Employment Intensity of Growth Differently for Women and Men?

Abstract:

Since all macroeconomic policies are enacted within a certain set of distributive relations and institutional structures, the employment intensity of growth is likely to vary for men and women depending on the nature and context of output growth. I examine the gendered nature of this growth-employment nexus by analyzing the differential impacts that macroeconomic policies and structures have on growth’s employment intensity by gender for eighty countries in the period from 1990 to 2012. Such an understanding is of particular relevance to policymakers concerned with the linkages between growth and human development, as the question of whether the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared is one that centers on the capacity of economies to generate high-quality employment. Although education levels and non-agricultural sectors are associated with more employment intensive growth for men and women, policies supporting reductions in non-wage care work, prioritizing public expenditures on education, and promoting secondary school enrollment for girls are especially linked with growth that is more employment intensive for women. The results I obtain here illuminate broad trends through a very wide lens and should be applied in conjunction with more intimate knowledge of how cultural, technological, legal, political, and economic activities uniquely affect one another in particular countries.

Keywords::

• employment
• gender
• inclusive growth
• inequality
• macroeconomic policy

JEL Classification Codes::

• B54
• E24
• F66
• O4

Appendices

Table 1A. Employment Intensity Estimates by Gender, 1990–2012

Table 2A. Output Growth, 1990–2012

Notes

¹ Author’s calculations based on ILO (2013).

² Author’s calculations of the 25th and 75th percentiles. These estimates are based on ILO (2013).

³ Although it would be preferable to have output Y disaggregated by women, men, and youth’s contribution to output, this level of data is not available. Because output and employment data are from two different groups, nothing concrete can be said about the sub-group productivity responses to a given unit of growth. (For more on the relationship between employment

⁴ The index of real exchange rate undervaluation is constructed following the methods of Dani Rodrik (2008).

⁵ The agricultural sector is omitted, so coefficient estimates are relative to its share.

⁶ For example, hyperinflation episodes in Russia, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Armenia, and Kazakhstan in the early 1990s.