Contemporary Issues in Labour Force Participation

The level of women and young girls’ participation in formal sector of the Labour Market is relatively low in the sub-Saharan African region. Invariably many of the women in most countries of the region are engaged in the informal sector of the economy - especially in agriculture while formal sector of the Labour Market is predominated by the men although men are also equally active in the informal sector of the economy. Constraints confronted by both young men and women in Labour Markets in many of the sub-Saharan African countries have been attributed to these factors - market constraints institutional constraints short-comings in legal identity and rights limited access to public assets and services financial or monetary constraints individual constraints as well as class ethnicity and gender constraints. Gender disparities in Labour Force Participation are more pronounced among young women in the intermediate fertility countries - this is evident in the relative high rate of household poverty in most of the countries of the region.