Women's Employment and Natural Shocks

Eugenia Canessa and Gianna Claudia Giannelli ()
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Eugenia Canessa: University of Florence

No 14055, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We employ georeferenced data and longitudinal household panel survey data to investigate the impact of the dramatic flooding that hit Bangladesh from August-September 2014 on women's employment and empowerment. Development economics models suggest an increase in household members' labour supply as a shock-coping strategy. Our difference-in-differences estimates confirm this assumption: women's employment probability increases by approximately 13 percentage points. Correcting for selection bias due to the initial employment status of women, we also find significant increases in the probability of non-employed women entering employment, in the average monthly income of employed women and in the probability of women engaging in autonomous wage-earning activities. Finally, we show that the greater earning capacity of employed women—instrumented by the intensity of flooding in the villages where women live—contributes to raising their bargaining power within the household as measured by the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index and by economic decision-making indicators.

Keywords: Bangladesh; flood; shock-coping strategy; women's employment; intrahousehold bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F66 J16 Q12 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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