Participation and employment in seven developing economies: An age-period-cohort analysis

This paper aims at comparing various characteristics of labour force participation and employment, either formal or informal, for both men and women in several emerging or developing economies of different regions using pseudo panels and the Age-Period-Cohort (APC) method.

This paper aims at comparing various characteristics of labour force participation and employment, either formal or informal, for both men and women in several emerging or developing economies of different regions using pseudo panels and the Age-Period-Cohort (APC) method. This study allows us to disentangle the effects of three factors (age-effect, time/period-effect and cohort effect), which shape participation and employment patterns, and understand better how the life-courses of individuals are influenced by these three factors. The authors provide detailed results for each of these effects and put a specific focus on the case of women. Differences in the age profile of women are observed according to the respective country analysed. The analysis of time-effect allows us to observe a clear and consistent pattern of increased female participation in cases of medium and large recessions in the countries concerned. This confirms the hypothesis of an added worker effect, i.e. an increase in the labour supply of women when their husbands’ income decreases due to unemployment or reduction in working hours. Finally, regarding cohort effects, the authors observe different behaviours of the newer generation, which depend on gender and other characteristics, such as the level of education. The long-term evolution of male and female participation could indicate that those will not increase naturally in the coming years simply through generations renewal.