My initial plan for the blog articles was to write them while I was living through my summer internships. But the first internship flew by before I had the chance to do so, and, even though I have produced content on OpenUp, I was hoping to share some lessons related to the Girl Empowerment Project (GEP) first.
The seven weeks working for the GEP were divided across two projects. In the first three weeks, I researched the potential drivers of Brazil’s rates of female labor force participation (FLFP), which happen to be higher than in several developing countries. In the remaining time, I produced descriptive analyses to understand the potential explanations to low FLFP in urban India and, in particular, Delhi.
In this post, I am going to focus on the main lessons I got from revising literature on Brazil and FLFP. I was extremely surprised to learn that Brazil’s 54 % FLFP rate is considered an advance with respect to other developing countries, given that men’s participation rate is 73.9%. These numbers started making more sense after I learned that India’s FLFP rate is 20.3%, while male participation is 76%.
Learning from Brazil’s experience, where FLFP was only 18.5% 40 years ago, could bring valuable insights to deal with the low rates in India. My first task in the GEP was to gather evidence to explain the dynamics observed in Brazil. In short, I learned the following facts:
Increases in Brazil’s FLFP were driven by younger cohorts and married women.
The opportunity costs of working for women in Brazil seem to be decreasing over time – which is expected to have reduced FLFP – but they still exist and persist.
Education has been pointed as one of the main drivers of Brazil’s advances with respect to FLFP. In particular, Brazil’s increases in FLFP due to education were led by younger cohorts and married women.
Some studies suggest that cultural changes have led to greater FLFP in Brazil. However, there is also evidence that these cultural changes were not fully translated into better labor market outcomes for women, with cultural factors still negatively affecting FLFP.
A trade reform that happened in the 1980’s appears to have increased FLFP through sectoral labor reallocation and higher supply of female labor, two of the mechanisms proposed by economic models.
With trade liberalization, labor was reallocated from skilled to unskilled-labor-intensive sectors, and FLFP increased for women with all levels of education, with largest effects on low-skilled and particularly medium-skilled women.
Based on these findings, I came up with five important lessons/takeaways from the Brazilian case – which could be insightful for other countries’ experiences. Here is piece of my case study on Brazil where I summarize my main learnings:
# 1: Policies aimed at reducing housework burden are effective in increasing FLFP
The evidence that Brazil’s FLFP has been restrained by housework burden is large, including analyses on the explanatory power of family size and hours dedicated to housework, and the impact of daycare services on participation. These findings show that FLFP in Brazil has increased as housework burden has been lifted, but also that there is still room to raise participation with more access to substitutes to domestic work. The Brazilian context suggests that countries in similar settings may benefit significantly in terms of FLFP by providing access to daycare, household appliances, family planning, cultural change and among other substitutes.
# 2: Education is key to induce FLFP, when not restrained by other barriers to participation
While women were already closing the educational gender gap around the 1980’s, it took a couple of decades for higher schooling levels to lead to more FLFP. Descriptive analyses suggest that cultural barriers were lifted during this period, which could mean that women were being held back not because they were unprepared to work, but due to cultural challenges they faced at the time. Despite the gradual effect, education has been the one of the main drivers of the increases in Brazil’s FLFP in the last 50 years. This means that education is a powerful determinant of FLFP, and that, when gender equality in schooling is achieved, it may be important to understand if other barriers are preventing education from inducing FLFP.
# 3: More progressive beliefs may not fully result in more progressive action
As Brazilians’ beliefs have moved towards more progressive views, the country has seen significant increases in FLFP. Though much of these advances is empirically associated with cultural changes, it is important to note that this progress took place gradually and that FLFP still appears to be negatively affected by cultural factors. Thus, Brazil illustrates how shifts in beliefs and views may not lead to proportional changes in attitudes, which may need external pushes to take place.
# 4: Programs to increase FLFP be should designed around sectoral allocation
Brazil has shown that structural change may have positive impacts on FLFP in the short to medium term, driven by employment flows to activities that are intensive in female labor and by economic uncertainty.
Though policies that lead to structural change – trade liberalization, in this case – are not necessarily desirable for its effects on gender disparities, as they may hurt men to favor women, they may happen for other relevant reasons, such as economic growth. Thus, instead of inducing structural change to curb gender gaps, countries could explore reallocations that would have happened for other purposes and adapt to include women under different scenarios. In each situation, it is important to understand the constraints to FLFP, with a special focus on cultural factors and comparative advantages.
If women are considered less capable of working in sectors that are relevant to the economy, one needs to understand why. Is it because they lack training for certain tasks? Or perhaps a mere difference in physical attributes, which could be overcome with certain technologies or allocation of female work to other positions within the same sector?
What if cultural factors are at play? If so, reshaping beliefs with respect to women’s place in society could promote higher FLFP. If the problem is social status, positions that are socially “unacceptable” for women can be rebranded, so that women are more willing to take them, with their families’ encouragement. If women and families lack information about the opportunities available, mapping possible pathways and presenting the means to achieve them may change this scenario. Evidently, culture-related interventions must carefully respect individual beliefs and choices, aiming only to expand women’s possibilities.
# 5: Economic crisis are opportunities to level the playing field
Though we do not want to provide women with opportunities by taking them away from men, situations as such may arise by chance. In the case where female labor supply rises as a consequence of male unemployment and economic uncertainty, it may be important to level the playing field, and prepare women to be as competitive as men in the labor market. Supporting women when they are more willing to work does not consist of giving them advantages, but making competition fairer. Harnessing these periods to leverage labor force participation across genders may have long term impacts on FLFP, by reducing gender gaps in average experience and changing perceptions of women’s place in the labor market.
These conclusions, of course, are specific to Brazil’s context. However, they shed some light on labor market dynamics for women, and can provide insights as to how FLFP manifests across different settings.