Female Labor Force Participation in Five Selected Mena Countries: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia)

Moundir Lassassi () and Aysıt Tansel ()

No 13814, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper considers the female labor force participation (FLFP) behavior over the past decade in five MENA countries namely, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia. Low FLFP rates in these countries, as it is in other MENA countries, are well documented. We conduct synthetic panel analysis using age-period-cohort (APC) methodology and decompose FLFP rates into age, period and cohort effects. We present our results with Hanoch-Honig/Deaton-Paxson normalization and maximum entropy estimation approaches to the APC methodology in order to observe robustness of our results. We first study the aggregate FLFP and note the differentials in age, period and cohort effects across the countries we consider.The analysis is carried also out by rural/urban regional differentiation, marital status and educational attainment. Implications of our results for possible government policies to increase FLFP rates are discussed.

Keywords: cohort effects; period effects; female labor force participation; synthetic panel analysis; life-cycle profiles; MENA countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C25 D1 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - substantially revised version published as 'Female Labor Force Participation in Egypt and Palestine: An Age-Period- Cohort Analysis' in: Review of Development Economics, 2022, 26 (4), 1997-2020.

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Related works:
Working Paper: FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION IN FIVE SELECTED MENA COUNTRIES: AN AGE- PERIOD-COHORT ANALYSIS (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia)* (2020)
Working Paper: Female Labor Force Participation in Five Selected Mena Countries: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia) (2020)
Working Paper: Female Labor Force Participation in Five Selected MENA Countries: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia) (2020)
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