A report by the World Bank has shown that a billion-dollar increase in export exposure has reduced the female-to-male employment ratio in Tunisia by 6.8 percentage points, mainly because of married rather than single women.
The report entitled Exports: drivers of labour market improvements in the Middle East and North Africa” points out that, in addition, as exports increasingly concern male labour-intensive sectors, the most exposed Tunisian regions have seen relatively low growth in female employment.
Geographical segmentation is thus adding to gender segmentation to further hamper women’s participation in the labour market, according to the same source.
The North-East and Centre-East regions specialise in manufacturing, while the cities of the Greater Tunis region are mainly service-oriented.
Between 2006 and 2016, the provinces most exposed to the increase in exports saw a drop in the ratio of female to male employment. “This is not surprising, since most of the shocks induced by external demand (increases) were concentrated in male labour-intensive sectors, leading to an expansion in male employment and a contraction in female employment,” the report said.
The report reveals that greater exposure to international trade has no significant effect on the unemployment rate of either men or women. Given the fall in the female employment rate noted earlier, we can conclude that women (particularly married women) were leaving the labour market and that households appeared to be substituting their participation for that of men.
The theme of the report is “Exports: drivers of labour market improvements in the Middle East and North Africa”. It looks at the impact of trade policy on trade and its correlation with local labour market conditions in three low- and middle-income countries: Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia. Given the particular characteristics of their labour markets, the diversification of their exports and the evolution of their trade policy, these three countries offer important lessons for the economic development of the region.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse