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WOMEN, YOUTH, AND THE WORKING POOR
age, education, and experience—a gender wage gap exists in favor of male workers. 2 While the magnitude of the gender wage gap appears to be highly heterogeneous across the region (figure 2.4), it is generally much larger in the private sector (reaching up to 40–80 percent in Egypt and the West Bank and Gaza). Likely explanations for the gender wage gap in the private sector include occupational segregation (women work disproportionately in low-paying sectors) and discrimination (see discussion in chapter 1 and World Bank 2013). As one might expect, gender wage gaps are lower in the public sector where there are more concerns about equity and less tolerance of discrimination. In fact, in the public sector of the West Bank and Gaza, women actually earn more than men on average, possibly because the best female workers self-select into public sector jobs.
What determines women’s low participation in the labor force? Economic factors One body of literature claims that economic reasons account for the low levels of female participation in the labor force: women’s employment decisions are based on the quality of available opportunities, including market wages. According to this argument, women would enter the labor market if their market wage were above their reservation wage (see Rauch and Kostyshak 2009; World Bank 2013), corresponding to the value of their household chores and caretaking. Consistent with this explanation, a number of studies have pointed out that low levels of female LFP in MENA are explained mainly by very low participation rates among women without tertiary education, who still constitute the largest share of the working-age population (Paterno, Gabrielli, and D’Addato 2008; Chamlou, Muzi, and Ahmed 2010). In fact, while LFP rates among educated women in MENA are comparable to those in more developed economies (at approximately 60 percent),
TABLE 2.2 Basic unemployment profile of women ages 15–64 for the Arab Republic of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia, 2009–10 Egypt, Arab Rep.
Jordan
Morocco
19.1 19.6 17.9
21.6 23.2 20.3
19.7 17.1 30.8
9.73 19.93 1.75
32.7 26.1 5.2
44.2 29.4 3.1
42.9 18.9 6.4
16.21 15.51 33.48
8.5 28.5
15.4 32.5
14.2 24.9
2.13 17.49
12.9
1.8
13.0
2.92
15.5 32.0
34.9 29.1
19.9 22.5
24.80 23.44
Tunisia Strata All Urban Rural Age groups 15–24 25–34 35–64 Marital status Married Not married Education level Primary or below Preparatory/ secondary, general/ secondary, vocational Tertiary
Source: Based on the Arab Republic of Egypt’s Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) 2009, Jordan’s LMPS 2010, Morocco’s LFS 2009, and Tunisia’s LFS 2010. See the appendix for more information on these surveys.
FIGURE 2.3 Educational specializations in countries in MENA, 2010 Social sciences, business and law Services Science Humanities and arts Health and welfare Engineering, manufacturing, and construction Education Agriculture 0
20
40 60 80 100 Percent Female dominated Male dominated
Source: World Bank 2011. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa.
LFP rates are very low for all other educational groups (figure 2.5). Women without university education, especially in urban areas, can obtain only jobs that offer low wages, require long and hard hours, and