Gender Inequality in Employment in Mozambique

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12220
• Date: 01 June 2019
• Author: Finn Tarp,Carlos Gradín
• Published date: 01 June 2019

© 2019 UNU-WIDER. South A frican Journa l of Economics published by John W iley & Sons Ltd on behal f of

Economic Societ y of South Africa.

South African Journal of Economics Vol. 87:2 June 2019

180

doi : 10.1111/ saje .122 20

GENDER INEQUALITY IN EMPLOYMENT IN MOZAMBIQUE

CARL OS GRADÍN* A ND FINN TAR P†

Abstract

We investigate the gender employment gap in the expanding non-subsistence sector of the

economy in Mozambique, a country still characterized by a large subsistence agricultural sector.

We show evidence that the gender gap has widened over time and we identify two structural

factors strongly associated with it. One factor is the still relatively lower level of female human

capital, with less attained education, as well as literacy and Portuguese proficiency rates. The lower

conditional employment probabilities of married women, as compared with men, is the other

factor. These findings point at expanding women´s education and facilitating the access of married

women to the emerging labour market as the most effective ways of achieving a more inclusive

growth path that does not leave women behind.

JEL Classification: J16, J61, J71, O15, O55

Keywords: Gende r, employment, education, Mozambique

1. INTRODUCTION

Labour markets in low-income countries are characterised by the major size of the agri-

cultural sector, as well as by the larger proportion of the labour force working in small

famil y businesses wit hout remuneration (e.g. Rosenzweig, 1988). Under these conditions,

the female labour force tends to be large, but a well-known hypothesis in development

economics states that it may follow a U-shaped relationship with structural change (e.g.

Goldin, 1995; Mammen and Paxson, 2000). This is based on empirical evidence and the

predictions of basic labour supply models. According to these, economic development

shrinks the subsistence sector and expands paid blue-collar jobs, especia lly in the manu-

facturing sector, that tend to exclude married women. This exclusion may be the result

of prevailing social norms and women’s preferences, but also of the high fixed costs for

working out-of-home relative to the low pay received, in a context of high fertility rates.

The improvement in the economic opportunities of men relative to (married) women

brought about by economic development may then imply a drop in female labour force

participation. This trend is reversed only in a later stage, when women outperform men

in terms of education, when fertility rates drop, and when there is enough supply of

white-collar jobs, those typically filled by women.

Gaddis and Klassen (2014) recently claimed that this hypothesis might well describe

the path followed by developed economies in the past, but they found little empirical

support for its relevance in current developing countries, especially regarding the declin-

ing portion of the U. According to these authors, historical contingent initia l conditions

* Corresponding author: U NU-WIDER, Helsink i, Finland. E-ma il: Gradin@wider.unu.edu

† UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland

This is an ope n access arti cle under the terms of t he Creative Commons A ttribution-NonComm ercial-Share Alike Licen se, which

permits use a nd distribution in a ny medium, provided t he original work is pr operly cited, the use i s non-commercial a nd the content is

offered under identical terms.

South African Journal

of Economics

181South African Journal of Economics Vol. 87:2 June 2019

© 2019 UNU-WIDER. South A frican Journa l of Economics published by John W iley & Sons Ltd on behal f of

Economic Societ y of South Africa.

would be more relevant to determine female labour force participation trends than secu-

lar development trends. In the sub-Saharan region, the ratio of female-to-male employ-

ment rates has been associated positively with democracy, gross domestic investment,

primary education and urbanization, and negatively with real GDP per capita, foreign

direct investment, sex population ratio and being a net oil-exporting country (Anyanwu

and Augustine, 2013).

Mozambique is a low-income country in the sub-Saharan region. It has a predom-

inantly male-dominated culture, with the north remaining “more ‘traditional’ than

the southern and central parts of the country in terms of economic adaptation, socio-

cultural organ ization and gender characterist ics, including limited economic participation,

high levels of early marria ge and low levels of literacy among women” (Tvedten, 2011:4).

Traditional gender relations are the result of Bantu peoples’ customs with the inf luence of

Muslim settlers along the coast and long-lasting Portuguese colonization, more recently

reshaped by post-independence war, FRELIMO’s socialist policies and structura l adjust-

ment driven by IMF/World Bank (Tvedten, 2011). The country was characterized by

high historical female labour participation rates (World Bank, 2012), but this occurred

mostly in the subsistence agricultur al sector. After the end of the long post-independence

conflict in 1992, Mozambique engaged in a profound tran sformation of its resource-rich

economy that increased the presence of men and women in a growing non-subsistence

sector.

In this context, the aim of this paper is to analyse post-war trends in (non-subsis-

tence) employment rates in Mozambique, and to assess how inclusive the current growth

pattern is for women. Gender equality in employment is a key for the fulfilment of

at least two important Sustainable Development Goals: achieving gender equality and

empowerment of all women and girls (Goal 5), and promoting inclusive and sustainable

economic growth, employment and decent work for all (Goal 8). We also aim at identi-

fying the drivers of the gender employment gap. On the one hand, we analyse the role of

distinct worker characteristics of men and women, such as human capital, location, eth-

nicity or migration. On the other hand, the role of distinct employment probabilities by

sex conditional on those characteristics (e.g. employment rates being different for urban

married men and women with high education). Combining both types of fa ctors, we aim

at explaining the gender gap in employment.

2. DATA AND MAIN VAR IABLES

In our analysis, we combine information from available censuses and household budget

surveys. We use the public use microdata samples of the 1997 and 2007 censuses con-

ducted by Instituto Nacional de Estatística, harmonised by the Integrated Public Use

Microdata Series (IPUMS-I, Minnesota Population Center, 2015).1 The analysis will be

complemented with labour information obtained from the two most recent household

budget surveys, Inquéritos aos Orçamentos Familiares (IOF) 2008/2009 and 2014/2015.

These surveys help to provide more up-to-date information, although more limited and

with smaller samples than in censuses.

1 The last 2017 census is not yet available, and Moz ambique does not have a regular Labor Force

Survey (only the Inquérito Integrado à Força de Trabalho, 2004/2005).