Dear Prafulla Nath,

yours are interesting questions.

As you pointed out, level of education for women is rising, the fertility rate for women is falling, and wage rate is rising. However, there could be other factors leading the withdrawal trends.

Studying the situation in the MENA region, Professor Assaad claimed that: "Rural young women are both increasingly educated and increasingly unwilling to engage in traditional agriculture work [...] Thus, because of limited mobility and limited modern employment opportunities in their local labor markets, they are increasingly unemployed or withdrawing from the labor force altogether. [...] this is strictly a story about conservative cultural values restricting labor supply”

Professor Assaad introduced the idea of “reservation working conditions” - the minimum working conditions that a woman (and her family) will accept, claiming that: “Educated women in the Arab World are seeking higher rates of market work if such work can meet their ‘reservation working conditions.”

Professor Assad's considerations could raise other questions helping to answer yours, namely, do have women equal labor opportunities than men? To which kind of jobs have women access? Have women access to effective social protection measures, such as maternity rights, public kindergartens, and so on and so forth?

In my very personal point of view, to answer these question we should, first of all, separately consider the situation of developed and developing countries. Concerning developing countries, it is possible that the choice to withdrawn from labor market is dependent on the fact that, as suggested by professor Assad, increasingly educated women are not willing to accept some kind of jobs. Therefore it is possible that in countries in which women have no access to all kind of jobs and position, like men have, they choose to withdraw the labor market. In addition, it is also possible that these countries do not offer women with the basic social protection measures that foster women participation in the labor market. Concerning developed countries, on the one side even if things are changing women are not still treated like men in the job market. They are often payed less for the same job, they have difficulties to reach high positions in the public as well as in the private sectors, and so on. On the other side, many developed countries have in place poor social protection policies that often discouraged women to enter the labor market or force them to withdraw it.

I make an example about Italy, a country that I know well. Even if in the last decades the situation is changed a little, the Italian job market still suffer from a heavy gender gap. The gap it is present in the wages, in the positions women can aspire, as well as other contexts. At the same time, Italian social policies to foster women participation in the labor market are very poor. The maternity leave is very short, public kindergarten do cover a tiny share of the national need, private kindergarten is often very expensive, and so on. In addition, in Italy, it is still present the odious and illegal practice in which young women are forced to sign a resignation paper before to sign the work contract, so as that if they become pregnant the employer can fire them without running into legal problems.

All these considerations on the one hand may partially explain the women's labor withdrawn phenomenon, but on the other side they also highlight how the choice to withdraw the labor market is not necessarily irrational.

Marco

Thank you very much Marco for your insight. I have few points to make.

First, Irrationality for me has a limited definition. When everything is conducive for women employment if she is not joining or working women withdrawing from labor market then it is an irrational CHOICE.

Second, this issue has two sides: one is demand side of female labor force participation and the other is supply side. For supply we may blame culture, where women participation in labor force is not encouraged.But if there is low demand (not enough job), women may face challenge.

Third, women withdrawing from labor force is not only seen in India(I am an Indian), it is also seen in many developed countries.

Prafulla

Dear Prafulla Nath, thanks for your reply.

I support your limited definition of irrationality. And indeed women withdrawal from labor force is a phenomenon affecting many different countries.

Of course the two sides you mentioned must be taken into account, but I think that problems are present in both sides. I mean, also from the demand side, even if there is high demand, but this demand is limited only to low-skill or low-profile jobs, educated women may decide to withdraw from the market. The same can happen if women are not adequately supported by the state (as I said in my previous answer).

And this is exactly my point: so far, in many developing as well as developed countries, everything is not so conductive for women employment. Therefore, I'm a little skeptical in considering women withdrawal necessarily as an irrational choice.

Marco

The labor market was and is not an economic instrument of democratic emancipation, except some more favorable professional sectors, which are nearer to the state than the market (here: small business as opportunity gap).

Thank you for this discussion!

Very important discussion !