Essays on inequality and female labor force participation in developing countries

This book is a collection of three essays contributing to the empirical literature on inequality and female labor force participation in developing countries. The first essay is an extension to the analysis of benefit incidence of public expenditures. Using data for Kenya it shows how different household needs for government services ought to be incorporated into the analysis to get an improved understanding of the distributional implications of public spending. The second essay revisits the hypothesis that female labor force participation follows a U-shaped trend over the course of economic development and suggests an innovative approach to explore the effect of structural change on women’s economic activity. The third essay investigates the impact of Brazil’s 1987-1994 trade liberalization on female labor force participation. It shows that trade reforms led to an increase in women’s labor force participation and employment after a period of two years, which appears to be related to labor reallocations across sectors as well as to greater labor market insecurity and male unemployment. “This book makes important contributions on the linkages between development, public policy, and poverty reduction. The first chapter significantly improves methods of determining who in the population benefits primarily from public spending. This chapter, including its application to Kenya, is likely to become the standard method for such analyses. The second two chapters examine drivers of female labor force participation and generate new insights into the impact of development and trade liberalization on gender inequality in employment. For scholars and practitioners of empirical development economics, this book will prove invaluable.” Prof. Stephan Klasen, PhD “This book provides novel insights into some critical issues of economic development. The chapter on the incidence of public education spending is a must-read for every policy analyst.” J-Prof. Dr. Jann Lay