Estimating the Likelihood of Women Working in the Service Sector in Formal Enterprises: Evidence from Sub Saharan African Countries - 2016
Download PDF / Free access online:
ABSTRACT
The paper uses individual data for 9,957 female employees (drawn from a total sample of 29,332 individuals) in formal enterprises from 16 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries to analyse the likelihood of women in the service sector. A well-structured questionnaire was used in all the countries to collect the data required for the analysis. The data reveal that there is a significant higher presence of women (81.56 percent) working in services as compared to the manufacturing and agricultural sectors; indicating that the service sector is more favourable for women employment compared with men. This indicates that female employment not only in the service sector is a driver of growth, and thus high female employment rates indicate a country’s potential to grow more rapidly. More so, in many developing countries women’s employment is sometimes considered as a coping mechanism in response to economic shocks that hit the household.