We combine cross-country data from the Jobs of the World Database with harmonized household microdata from 18 Sub-Saharan African and 15 Latin American and Caribbean countries to document how men and women are allocated across self-employment, private wage employment, and public wage employment as economies develop. Globally, rising incomes are associated with a shift away from self-employment and toward wage work, and with women increasingly over-represented, relative to men, in the public sector. Sub-Saharan Africa departs sharply from this pattern: self-employment remains pervasively high even at comparable levels of income and urbanisation, and unlike in the rest of the world, women are under-represented in SSA’s public sector relative to men. Using detailed microdata, we consider gender differences in labour market participation, urbanisation, educational attainment, and earnings to explain these patterns.
Where Do Women Work? Public Sector Employment, Gender, and Development
- Ahu Gemici
- Juan Pablo Rud
- Ija Trapeznikova
- Pengzhan Qian
- Juan Sebastián Cifuentes Troncoso