Overview

Women’s empowerment and economic development are closely related. According to Duflo (2012), that women’s empowerment can contribute to economic development. Despite of its importance, studies on the gender issues in the labor markets of developing countries has been scanty.

We aim to employ micro data of developing countries in Asia (Indonesia and Sri-Lanka) to analyze gender issues in their labor markets. The scope of the project consists of two major topics: female labor market participation and gender wage gap. We aim to provide policy relevant suggestions through our project.

Female Labor Market Participation and Firm’s Demand

In previous fiscal year, we employed methodology of Blau and Kahn (2007) to measure the elasticity of married women’s labor supply in terms of their own wage and spouse’s wage to examine the income effect and substitution effect.

In upcoming year, we plan to focus on firm’s demand side of female workers. We will decompose women’s employment change into between industry part and within industry part to examine there is any demand shift toward female workers. We will also examine women’s employment in manufacturing sector is related to various firm characteristics.

Gender Wage Gap   

Benefited by our detailed micro data, we found out that wage structure has major role in evolution of gender wage gap in Indonesia. In upcoming fiscal year, we aim to continute our research using another interesting economy in South Asia, Sri Lanka. We plan to investigate the evolution of gender wage gap in Sri-Lanka which has relatively well-educated female labor force with rapid economic development.

We will continue our research in Indonesia as well by relating gender wage gap with change in minimum wage. Indonesia’s minimum wage changed drastically over last two decades affecting overall wage structure. We will eamine the impact of minimum wage on gender wage disparity in the labor market.