Financial Development And Female Labor Participation

Women’s participation in the labor force not only has an important impact on their own welfare and long-term development,but also contributes to the progress and development of the whole society.However,in the past two decades,the female labor force participation rate has been declining.The situation is grim.At the same time,financial markets continue to grow and become an important force driving healthy economic growth.Finance directly brings capital to the economy,and there is a certain substitution relationship between capital and labor.In addition,financial resources tend to flow to male group and high net worth group.So what is the relationship between financial development and female labor force participation?This thesis hopes to provide new ideas for further promoting women’s labor participation through the discussion of this relationship.In the empirical analysis part,the degree of financial development is measured from the depth and width of financial development.This paper uses data from the World Bank database for 149 countries from 2005 to 2019;through Hausman’s test,the fixed effect model was selected to control individual effects of countries.In terms of the selection of control variables,other factors affecting female labor participation rate are controlled,while the lag female labor participation rate is introduced into the control variables considering the inertia of labor market policy and state.The empirical results show that there is a significant negative correlation between the degree of financial development and female labor force participation rate.And national income level has a moderating effect on this main effect.In this thesis,the robustness test is carried out by substituting dependent and independent variables,and adding control variables.The results are still valid.Finally,the thesis deeply analyzes the influence of financial development degree on female labor participation rate in different industries and employment forms,introduces male group as a comparison,highlighting the characteristics of the female group and finds that financial development degree will significantly promote women’s entry into the service industry,but has a negative impact on women’s entry into agriculture and industry.Financial development will significantly promote women’s entry into enterprises,but not women’s self-employment.Based on the results of the thesis,we can improve the female labor force participation rate from the following aspects:1.Strengthen the financial supervision system and legal protection for women’s employment;2.Strengthen the construction of social security system to reduce family burden;3.Accelerate the transformation of industrial structure;4.Ensure equal access to education for men and women and strengthen employment training.