IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/buseco/v59y2024i3d10.1057_s11369-024-00365-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does FDI encourage female labor force participation? Evidence from Arab countries

Author

Listed:
  • Manuchehr Irandoust

Abstract

This study examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on women's labor force participation in 14 Arab countries from 1991 to 2021. Theoretically, FDI supports gender equality by creating more jobs for women, providing them with better working conditions, and increasing their wages relative to those provided by local firms. It also does this via increasing the demand for labor and technological spillovers. Unlike previous studies, we utilize likelihood-based panel cointegration and multivariate analysis to examine cointegration between the variables, considering cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity. The results demonstrate that FDI inflows boost women's participation in the labor force in nearly half of the sample countries. Policywise, the findings imply that FDI inflows can assist central governments in achieving better gender development and equality through either higher female labor demand or sustainable labor practices and gender-equal norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuchehr Irandoust, 2024. "Does FDI encourage female labor force participation? Evidence from Arab countries," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 174-189, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:buseco:v:59:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1057_s11369-024-00365-3
    DOI: 10.1057/s11369-024-00365-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s11369-024-00365-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s11369-024-00365-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female labor force participation; Gender gap; FDI; Cointegration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:buseco:v:59:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1057_s11369-024-00365-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.