Two broad contrasting demographic trends present challenges for economies globally: countries with aging populations, often advanced economies and increasingly emerging markets, anticipate a significant shrinking of the labor force, with implications for growth, economic stability, and public finances. Economies with rapidly growing populations, as is the case in many low-income and developing countries, will face a burgeoning young population entering the labor market in the next decades—a large potential to reap the demographic dividend if the right skills and economic and social conditions are in place. This note highlights how gender equality, in both cases, can serve as a stabilizing factor to rebalance demographic trends. As decisions regarding fertility, human capital investment, and labor force participation are interlinked, policies should aim at relaxing households’ time and resource constraints that condition these choices. This means that, in general, in advanced economies and emerging markets, policies should facilitate women’s work–life choices and boost female participation in the labor market, whereas policies in low-income and developing countries should focus on reforms that narrow gender gaps in opportunities and support human capital accumulation.
Authors
Jiajia Gu, Lisa L Kolovich, Jorge Mondragon, Monique Newiak, Michael Herrmann
- Format
- Paper
- Frequency
- occasional
- ISBN
- 9798400277788
- ISSN
- 3005-4591
- Pages
- 39
- Published in
- United States of America
- Series
- Gender Notes No. 2024/002
- StockNumber
- GNSEA2024002
Table of Contents
- Promoting Gender Equality_Front Cover 1
- Promoting Gender Equality and Tackling Demographic Challenges_FINAL2 2
- Promoting Gender Equality and Tackling Demographic Challenges 5
- Motivation 5
- Stylized Facts: Diverging Demographic Trends 6
- Addressing Demographic Challenges: The Gains from Gender Equality 9
- Economic Benefits of Increasing Female Labor Force Participation in Aging Societies 9
- Gains from Narrowing the Gender Gap in Education in LIDCs 13
- Policy Solutions: Accounting for Time and Resource Constraints 16
- General Considerations 16
- Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets: Facilitating Work–Life Choices 19
- LIDCs: Boosting Human Capital in High-Population-Growth Countries 27
- Conclusion 31
- Figure 1. Dependency Ratios in Advanced Economies, Emerging Markets, and Low-Income and Developing Economies, 1960–2022 8
- Figure 2. Labor Force Participation Rate by Gender and Country Group, 2000–2022 9
- Figure 3. Change in GDP: Scenarios of Population Declines and Increased Female Labor Force Participation 11
- Figure 4. Scenarios of Population Declines and Increased Female Labor Force Participation, Select Countries 12
- (Percentage change in GDP) 12
- Box 1. Estimating the Impact of Gender Gaps in Labor Force Participation on GDP under Different Demographic Trends 13
- Figure 5. Economic Development and Human Capital, 2020 14
- Figure 6. Share of Population without Education, Select Countries, by Gender and Wealth Quintile 14
- Figure 7. (Adolescent) Fertility, Infant Mortality, and Maternal Death 15
- Figure 8. Time Use Gap (Male-Female) by Country by Activity, Minutes per Day 17
- Figure 9. Policies and Household Constraints 18
- Figure 10. Female Labor Force Participation and Fertility, 2020 19
- Figure 11. Female Labor Force Participation, Childcare, and Maternity Leave 21
- Box 2. Addressing Gender Gaps in the Labor Market in Korea 23
- Box 3. Expanding Choices: Gender-Responsive Family Policies for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova 24
- Table 1. Reducing the Need for Work–Life Trade-offs—Policies That Facilitate Choices 25
- Table 1. Reducing the Need for Work–Life Trade-offs—Policies That Facilitate Choices (concluded) 26
- Figure 12. Female Education, Electricity, Access to Water, and Sanitation 27
- Figure 13. EMs and LIDCs: Incidence of Child Marriage 29
- Annex 1. Population Dynamics 32
- Annex 2. Framework to Assess the Macroeconomic Gains from Education 33
- References 34
