FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN THE FORMAL SECTOR AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Journal of Third World Studies, Fall 2003 by Njoh, Ambe J, Rigos, Platon N

Whether one is persuaded by the argument advanced by proponents of affirmative action, or subscribes to the framework advanced by WID, WAD, or GAD, one is compelled to wrestle with the following crucial question. What are the implications of altering the status quo (to facilitate the entry of women into the formal labor market) for development? Are the implications negative or positive? To the best of our knowledge, this question is yet to be conclusively addressed. Cognizant of this, the study reported here addresses the question in the context of sub-Saharan African countries.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Data and Data Source. The primary source of the secondary data employed in this study are: 1) The Human Development Report 1998;23 and the World Development Indicators 1998.24 Since 1990, the UNDP has played a paramount role in efforts to measure human conditions throughout the world. Resulting from these efforts is one of the most widely-used indicators of the development construct. The indicator, known as the human development index (HDI) constitutes a vast improvement over its predecessors such as the GNP and GDP.25 The HDI's strength as an indicator of development derives from the fact that it "measures the overall progress of a country along three dimensions of human development, namely health, knowledge, and decent standard of living."26 It is worth noting that the HDI scores are not necessarily related to a country's economic status. In other words, not all countries that rank high on well-known economic indicators such as GNP and GDP rank correspondingly high in terms of HDI scores. It is therefore not surprising that some of the world's more affluent nations such as Brunei Darussalam, Kuwait, Mauritius and Quatar, as well as some the world's most impoverished countries such as Angola, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Senegal and Uganda, have low HDI scores.27 Hence, "the link between economic prosperity and human development is thus neither automatic nor obvious."28

Sample and Sample Size. The sample comprised exclusively sub-Saharan African countries. There are at least four reasons why it makes sense limiting a study of the genre reported here to sub-Saharan Africa as opposed to the entire continent.29 First, while the region is indisputably vast, it circumscribes countries that have similar, but certainly not identical, population structures. Second, with the exception of South Africa, countries in the region are at a similar level of technological development. Third, and again, with the exception of South Africa, the stocks of material wealth within countries in the region are similar to some degree. Fourth, the region has been treated as a single international block for more than a century. Finally, all countries in the region have experienced one form or another of European or Western domination. Here, attention must be drawn to the fact that while Liberia and Ethiopia were never formally colonized, they were nevertheless dominated by Western powers-the U.S. in the case of the former and Italy in the latter.