The Determinants Of The Women's Labor Supply In Developing Countries: Case Of China And Congo

Economic theory suggests that women's labour supply decisions can be understood through the careful modeling of their preferences for work and leisure. These preferences for work and leisure are predominately influenced by human capital endowments, demographic variables and family traits (Elisa Birch, 2002). Given that the labour supply of women has changed over the past 20 years, as women's educational attainment has been rising. Despite the discrimination and segregation that they are facing in the labour market worsened by structural adjustment, the labour force participation rate of women increased in Congo from 12 per cent in 1953 to 44 per cent in 2000 and in China from 11 per cent in 1953 to 45 per cent in 2000. It seems important that academic researchers and policy makers have a clear understanding of the relative significance of these influences on women's labour supply decisions. The aim of this thesis is to identify the determinants of women's labour supply in these two urban areas : Zhejiang (China) and Brazzaville (Congo). It contributes to enhancing this understanding by estimating the labour supply of Zhejiang and Brazzaville women. We test the hypothesis that women's labor participation depends on the total income of the household; the determinants of women's labour participation are different between married and unmarried women; as well as other hypotheses concerning the impact of individual characteristics such as age, marital status, education training, wage and the family characteristics like husband or parent labour participation, presence of additional adult in the family, number of Children, the husband or tutor income on women's labor force participation . The study relies on data collected through a survey of 1000 women (single, married, divorced and widow) in Zhejiang (China) and 1000 in Brazzaville (the Congo), aged 18 to 61, being in the paid work or engaged in a process of job hunting, during august to October 2003. Probit regression was used to estimate women's labor supply for the entire sample of each urban area and logistic regression for estimation by marital status. The results of the estimations carried out allow it to be concluded that: When we consider the entire sample (married and unmarried women together): In Zhejiang: education, age, marital status, presence of other adults and imputedwage are important factors in the women decision to work; In Brazzaville: education, age, marital status, presence of other adults, imputed wage and number of children are important factors in the women decision to work.Concerning married woman, we found that their labour market participation basically depends on her personal and family characteristics: In Zhejiang: education, age, presence of other adult in the household, imputed wage and training have been found to influence women's decisions regarding work; In Brazzaville: education, age, presence of other adult in the household, imputed wage and number of children are important factors in the women decision to participate in the labour market.For the unmarried: In Zhejiang: education, age, tutor's labour participation and imputed wage significantly affect women decision to work In Brazzaville: education, imputed wage and number of children are important factors.The determinant of women's labour supply are different between married and unmarried women: while in Zhejiang, age, education and imputed wage push married and unmarried to participate into the paid labour force, presence of other adult in the household and training only affect married women. However tutor/husband's labour participation is significant only for unmarried.In the same way, education, number of children and imputed wage are significant factors in decision of married and unmarried to participate into the paid labor in Brazzaville while age and presence of other adult are important only for married women.In Brazzaville and Zhejiang, the married women participation in the paid labour market do not seem to be linked to the income or labour situation of their husband.Women's decisions to enter the paid labour market do not depend on the total income of the household; in other words, household economic status (family income) is not a significant factor in the women decision to work.Another finding is the positive and significant relation between the imputed wage and...