Comparative political economy studies of welfare states have focused on either general processes of modernization or the evolution of different welfare state 'regimes' - such as the social democratic, liberal and conservative types identified by Esping-Andersen. Variations in women's role in the workforce tend to be seen as closely allied with 'welfare regime' types or associated with welfare state modernization. But there are relatively few empirical studies in the political economy field of how, within the overall policy configuration of the state, welfare policies influence women's labour force participation. First, using a quantitative analysis of country-level data for 17 OECD countries from 1960 to 1987, this study identifies clusters of countries consistent with the Esping-Andersen classification, which share distinct patterns of women's role in the workforce and have different paths of development over time. However, the analysis shows that important anomalies exist and key questions remain unresolved. Second, case studies are used to analyse policy configurations and developments in women's employment over time. 'Core' examples are drawn from each main welfare regime - the USA (liberal), Sweden (social democratic) and Germany (conservative). The Netherlands is examined as a key anomalous case. Third, the lessons from the empirical analyses are used to reconsider aspects of the 'social democratic' and 'modernization' models of welfare state development. Across the period as a whole female labour force participation has grown in most countries. The most rapid growth of women's involvement has taken place in core countries with either liberal or social democratic welfare configurations (the USA and Sweden). There has been less change in 'conservative' countries (such as Germany) and in the Netherlands despite its 'social democratic' classification. Yet apparent linkages between labour market trends and welfare policies do not necessarily stand up to close over-time or comparative analysis. In the USA there are only weak connections between welfare policies and women's changing role in the labour market, whereas the two factors are closely and directly linked in Sweden. Particular policies contributed to expanding women's employment in Germany, but the overall policy configuration has bolstered broader patterns of social stratification inimical to women playing a larger role. In the Netherlands, welfare policies have clearly restrictive effects on women's participation in job markets, although some growth has occurred since the 'welfare explosion' of the 1960s. These findings show that welfare states' impacts on women's employment do not fit neatly into the 'modernization' or 'social democratic' models. 'One path fits all' models perform particularly poorly, but even differentiated analyses of 'welfare state regimes' pay insufficient attention to the location of social welfare within the state's overall policy configuration. A clearer distinction between the 'welfare state' construed as form of state and as a particular sector of state activity can help comparative analysis eliminate the residual influence of 'one-path' models, and provide more compelling analyses of variations in women's employment trajectories.

During the first two thirds of the 20th century, electricity, running water, and a host of new consumer durables diffused into most American homes. These new household technologies revolutionized domestic life by freeing up time from basic housework. In this dissertation, I study the consequences of household technological change on families, focusing on fertility, child health, marriage, and female labour force participation. Chapter 1 provides a short history of household modernization. I then present an econometric framework for evaluating the effects of household technological change, and discuss the main estimation challenges. To address these issues, I introduce an estimation strategy based on a newly-assembled dataset that captures the rollout of the U.S. power grid during the mid-20th century. In chapter 2, I study the impact of household technological change on fertility and child health, exploiting substantial cross-county and cross-state variation in the timing of when households acquired new consumer durables. Modern household technologies led families to make a child quantity-quality tradeoff favouring quality: household modernization is associated with decreases in infant mortality and decreases in fertility. The declines in infant mortality were particularly large in states where households had relied heavily on coal for heating and cooking, where the potential to improve indoor air quality was greatest. Health improvements were also larger in states that had previously invested heavily in maternal education, suggesting that household modernization led parents to provide better infant care. Overall, household technological change can account for between 25% and 30% of the total decline in infant mortality between 1930 and 1960. In chapter 3, I examine the relationship between household modernization, investment in children, and female employment. I present a conceptual framework in which household technological change has little immediate impact on female employment, but generates increased investment in daughters' human capital, ultimately causing a rise in employment for subsequent cohorts of women. I find empirical support for these predictions. Further, the results suggest that the diffusion of modern technology into the home during the first half of the 20th century can account for a significant fraction of the rise in female employment after 1950.

The objective of the paper is to study the effect that female representation in national parliaments have on economic growth in African countries. The foundation for this research question is the assumption that an increase in female representation will lead to an increase in female education and female labour force participation and this will cause a positive effect on economic growth. To test the hypothesis panel data from 50 African countries is used during the time period 2008-2018. An OLS, entity fixed effect and time and entity fixed effect regression was conducted to test the research questions and control variables are included in the regression. The results showed no statistically significant effects of female representation on economic growth and the relationship was negative which contradicts earlier research and the initial hypothesis.

The research project intends to investigate the responses of households to economic uncertainty and natural shocks and the coping strategies developed both in terms of growing migration rates and remittance inflows and of increasing labour supply. In the first Chapter, we employ household survey data from the Indian State of Kerala to evaluate how transfers of remittances sent from overseas respond to heterogeneous sectoral employment shocks experienced by migrants in the host country during the 2008 crisis. In the second chapter, migration and remittances have been investigated as coping strategies adopted by households after a dramatic flood that hit Bangladesh in August-September 2014. The combination of high-resolution satellite data to precisely measure our treatment variable and the difference-in-difference estimations allow us to causally identify the impact of the dramatic flooding on internal and international migration. The same robust estimation technique is then applied to evaluate the effect of the 2014 flood in Bangladesh on female labour force participation rate and on the probability for unemployed women to enter the labour force. In addition, correcting for selection into employment, we estimate how the flood affects the probability for women working in the household farm to engage in independent wage-earning activities, evaluatiing whether the expected rise in female labour force participation - instrumented by the shock intensity they face - would help to increase their bargaining power within the households.

The aim with this thesis is to explore why the female labour force participation (FLFP) currently is increasing in one of the most conservative regions of the world: the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), while decreasing globally. (World Bank, 2022). The ongoing process of economic diversification in the region is in this thesis suggested to be an overlooked factor behind the surge in FLFP. Drawing from political science, political economy, and sociology theory on the gendered division of labour (e.g., Peterson, 2015; Prügl, 2020), this thesis suggests that, as the economies in the GCC region becomes more diversified, more female-coded labour sectors emerge. As a result, FLFP increases. The study is conducted by time series cross section statistical analysis with a timeframe between 1995 - 2015, using data from the Quality of Government Institute (Teorell, Sundström, Holmberg, Rothstein, Pachon & Mert Dalli, 2022). The result show that economic diversification affects FLFP in the GCC region, but not on a global level. The contribution of this thesis is not only to shed light on economic diversification as an unexplored factor that affects FLFP, but also on the importance of female-coded sectors for enabling women in conservative contexts to be part of the paid labour force.

All three essays in this thesis are concerned with the interrelation of family, gender and labour market outcomes. The first paper investigates family earnings mobility between parents and sons, and parents and daughters, highlighting the role of assortative mating. The results suggest that daughters are more mobile than sons. I also find that Sweden has a higher degree of mobility compared to the U.S., and that assortative mating is an important underlying channel for earnings transmission. The difference in mobility between the two countries does not inherently depend on factors affecting the marriage match. Moreover, adult economic outcomes are more dependent on family background for those at the lower end of the earnings distribution. The second study analyses the long-run effects of an increase in family size on the 1980-2005 labour market outcomes of Swedish men and women. The decision to have (more) children is dependent on current and future labour market prospects. I use the exogenous variations in the sex composition of the first two children to overcome this endogeneity problem. My findings suggest that having an additional child has a stronger negative impact on earnings than on participation. However, mothers experience a substantial but not complete long-term recovery in earnings. The third paper illustrates the difficulty in disentangling the underlying channels of intergenerational earnings persistence using a path analysis model. On closer examination, such a model has a potential shortcoming since the covariates are correlated to other unobserved factors. The results suggest that education is the most influential mechanism in the earnings transmission process, while IQ, mental ability and BMI are of secondary importance. However, education is sensitive to the inclusion of other covariates and the order in which these are entered into the equation. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.

<p>This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.</p>

<p>This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.</p>

Magister Scientiae - MSc / This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. / South Africa

Masters of Science / South Africa’s female labour supply increased substantially over almost the past two decades. Female labour force participation is an imperative indication of the extent to which females participate in the economic activities of any country. Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP) rates have gained interest among researchers and development specialists worldwide due to their significant contribution in measuring progress related to gender disparities across various economic settings. Amsden (1980) further posits that there has been an increase in women contribution to modern sector activities. Despite the advances in female educational attainment and the expansion of the market economy, FLFP rates are still low in comparison with the rates of their male counterparts. This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.