Cross-country data reveal a large gender employment gap in structural transformation in developing countries (Lee, 2022). Specifically, females in developing countries are substantially under-represented in the non-agricultural sector. Existing studies focus on the gender-sector-specific distortions to explain this gender gap, such as discrimination against females in the urban non-agricultural sector (Doss et al, mimeo; Lee, 2022). This research project evaluates how home production and within-household specialisation generate and amplify this gender employment gap, motivated by new evidence that the gender employment gap is much larger among the married than the single workers.
This study explores various data sources and establish a robust empirical pattern: in developing countries, married females are substantially less likely to work in non-agriculture while single females are not necessarily so. In addition, married females spend disproportionately more time on home production, and exogenous variations in kindergarten availability in the village have significant effects on female labour supply to non-agriculture. This project hence aims to quantify the role of families, especially within-household specialisation in home production in shaping the gender employment gap in structural transformation, using a quantitative macroeconomic model.
The researchers calibrate their framework to China, matching moments from macro and micro data, without explicitly targeting the observed gender gap in non-agricultural employment. Their results show that gender disparity in home production explains a large portion of the gender gap in the non-agricultural sector. They also use their model to assess the empirical results between kindergarten availability and the gender gap. Specifically, they provide public service in their model substituting home production. They find that it also alleviates the gender employment gap as they observe in the data.
This research project yields sharp policy implications. Literature usually studies how labour market regulations, for instance, help reduce the gender gap. This study suggests that providing public service such as kindergarten and senior homes helps rural female migrate and work in the non-agricultural sector. In addition, the gender gap in structural transformation exists internationally, but it is particularly large in LICs and the sub-Saharan countries (Lee, 2022). This project could have great policy relevance to LICs.
