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This paper investigates the relationship between health and labour market participation considering the potential role played by the presence of children and elderly persons (with/without disabilities) in Italian households.

The authors use longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and full-information maximum likelihood to estimate a two-equation model (one equation for labour force participation and one for health status) with instruments to address the endogeneity of the labour force participation choice. The model is estimated separately by gender.

The authors find that while the presence of children, elderly persons or both is positively associated with the health status of both genders, the presence of disabled elderly persons exerts a negative role. As for participation, interesting differences emerge. The presence of children discourages women's participation but is positively associated with men's labour force participation. Interestingly, a caring role for elderly persons without disability emerges for both genders when the presence of children is combined with that of elderly people. Gender differences are also at work for the role of childcare services and elderly and/or disabled home care/assistance.

The findings indicate a possible caring role for elderly persons without disabilities, neutralizing the effect of the presence of children on the labour force participation of both genders. The results also suggest that greater coverage of care services should increase the active participation of women in the labour market.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Kosovo remittances, migration and labor force participation and seeks to uncover how migration and remittances, often considered separately, interact to shape labor market outcomes across gender, age and education groups.

To analyze the relationship between remittances, migration and labor force participation, this study leverages multivariate probit (mvprobit) to rectify the endogeneity issue intrinsic from remittances and migration. Utilizing this robust methodological approach allows us to circumvent the limitations traditionally associated with biprobit analysis. The research is grounded in empirical evidence from the Millennium Century Corporation survey in Kosovo.

The findings indicate that remittances and migration are pivotal determinants in shaping the contours of labor force participation, particularly influencing disparities across gender, age and educational attainment. Further, this study unearthed intriguing evidence suggesting the disincentivizing effect of remittances on labor force participation, alongside the potentially disruptive influence of prospective migration plans.

The novelty of this work lies not only in the context-specific insights it provides into the socio-economic fabric of Kosovo—an area that has hitherto received limited scholarly attention—but also in its methodological innovation. The simultaneous application of mvprobit technique provides a nuanced approach to tackle the inherent endogeneity issue, thereby pushing the methodological frontiers of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of labour force participation and the factors affecting labour supply among older persons in Ghana. Both the extensive and intensive margins of older persons’ labour supply were analysed.

The paper uses nationally representative samples of household and individual data in 2016–2017 – Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 7) data – for the analysis. Heckman’s sample selection model is used to analyse both the extensive and intensive margins of older persons’ labour supply.

The study found that older persons in Ghana who are pensioners, widowed, have high levels of education, poor health status and live in urban areas are less likely to participate actively in the labour market. On the other hand, being head of a household, married and owning certain assets increase the likelihood of an older person to work. Furthermore, pensions, household headship and post-secondary education have negative effects on the labour supply as having them make older persons work fewer hours per week compared to their counterparts.

This research is the first study to examine the prevalence of old age employment and factors that affect labour market decisions of older persons in Ghana. It also adds to the limited literature on pension and retirement decisions in developing countries.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship of female participation in labor force with the cybersecurity maturity of nations and the enabling role of e-government development in moderating the same.

The authors have conducted fixed-effects regression using archival data for 149 countries taken from secondary sources. Furthermore, the authors have grouped the sample countries into four levels of cybersecurity maturity (unprepared, reactive, anticipatory and innovative) using clustering techniques, and studied the influence of their interest variables for individual groups.

Results show that female participation in labor force positively influences national cybersecurity maturity, and e-government development positively moderates the said relationship, thereby enabling the empowerment of women.

Encouraging broader participation of women in the labor force and prioritizing investments in e-government development are essential steps that organizations and governments may take to enhance a country’s cybersecurity maturity level.

This study empirically demonstrates the impact of the nuanced interplay between female participation in labor force and the e-government development of a nation on its cybersecurity maturity.

Economies and societies are not digitally isolated. Digital technologies are widely recognised as key drivers of information dissemination, knowledge sharing, income and employment. Digital technologies also influence the interlinkages of digitalisation, gender and labour market outcomes. Digital technologies impact every sphere of day-to-day life. It impacts ways of communication, trade and business; influences networking abilities; shapes societal norms, attitudes and behaviours. It is hence argued that digital technologies may have crucial implications for women's participation in the workforce.

Gender equality and increasing women's workforce participation is an important goal under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Research indicates that women are mainly involved in agricultural work, blue-collar formal work, while collar formal work, and entrepreneurship. Digital technologies significantly impact the ways of working in all these sectors. Consequently, it is argued that digital technologies influence women's participation across all such types of work.

This chapter aims at unravelling the linkages between digital technologies and women's workforce participation. To this end, the influences of digital technologies on women's participation in agricultural work, blue-collar formal work, white-collar formal work and entrepreneurship are discussed. The implications and impacts of the use of broadband, internet and mobile technologies are also discussed. This chapter also includes important theories of women's workforce participation and discusses them in light of digitalisation.

This study aims to contribute to the literature by examining the gender gap effects of childcare restrictions. Specifically, not using professional childcare services due to issues like access, quality or costs. Additionally, we explore the long-run consequences of extended work interruptions for childcare.

Using a specialized cross-sectional module from the 2018 Spanish Labor Force Survey, we estimated a set of linear regression models to capture the short and long run effects of childcare restrictions in labor market outcomes.

We identify substantial gender gaps in labor force, employment, full-time employment and hours worked among parents facing childcare constraints. In contrast, parents without such restrictions experience much lower gender gaps. The long-run analysis reveals that mainly career breaks lasting 2 years or more significantly diminish the labor supply and employment rates of mothers.

Our study goes beyond examining the effects of childcare restrictions on mothers’ labor market behavior and explicitly studies the gender disparities related to these restrictions. Moreover, our database includes information on work flexibility for childcare, allowing us to explore whether such flexibility can help mitigate these gender gaps. Additionally, we assess the long-term effects of work interruptions due to childcare responsibilities on women’s labor outcomes.

The global non-attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 indicates the issue of rising gender inequality. Educated women shying away from the labor force is worsening it. The labor market dynamics might shape the female labor force participation (FLFP). The present study recommends a policy framework by analyzing this dynamism across 125 countries over 1990–2020.

The Two-step System Generalized Method of Moments is used to address endogeneity bias. Dynamism in policy environment is captured by relaxing the Ceteris Paribus condition in the empirical model.

Results show that the moderation of labor market factors has increased with the attainment of Secondary and Tertiary Education. Results also highlight that these factors promote FLFP through prospective opportunities but also hinder female participation through employer’s discrimination despite educational attainment.

Studies have examined the role of education on FLFP. However, prior research has not investigated the role of labor market factors in influencing the impact of education on FLFP. The consideration of these factors will help in addressing the global policy lacuna by recommending a policy framework for enhancing FLFP through internalization of the externalities exerted by the labor market factors, and thereby, help the countries attaining the SDG 5 objectives.

We test the pertinence of the unemployment invariance hypothesis (UIH) for a set of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

We empirically investigate the nexus between unemployment and labour force participation employing structural vector autoregressive methods for panel data.

We find that shocks in unemployment produce long-lasting, negative effects on participation, testifying to a discouraged worker effect.

Our results do not support the validity of the UIH in high-income economies. This has relevant implications for policy making and macroeconomic models.

The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) to investigate whether the increase in FLFP enriches women's inclusive rights (economic, social, and political), (2) whether the effect of FLFP on inclusive rights is different across different economics (developed vs developing).

The study utilizes panel data encompassing 188 countries spanning the years 1981–2011. Discrete choice models, namely ordered probit and ordered logit, are employed, while also controlling for observable heterogeneity across countries, including factors such as inflation, income inequality, education, and human rights.

We find a positive association between FLFP and all aspects of women's rights (economic, social, and political). The results related to developed and underdeveloped countries are robust for women's political rights; however, the effect of FLFP on women's social and economic rights is insignificant for developing countries.

The need for continuous policy commitment to gender equality may be needed to bring about equality of inclusive rights (economic, social, and political rights) and to fulfill the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, the current study particularly adds value in existing research by investigating (empirically) the link between FLFP and different dimensions of women's inclusive rights.

Persons with disabilities (PwD) are generally less likely to be employed than the general population. The paper aims to investigate whether access to assistive technologies (AT) impacts labour force participation in the disabled population.

The study utilises the nationally representative survey on disability in India conducted in 2018 through multi-stage sampling by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI), Government of India. The instrumental variable (IV) approach has been employed to infer causality between AT and labour market participation.

The study found that the labour force participation rate (LFPR) in India amongst the disabled population was 29% in the age group of 15–65 years in 2017–2018, as compared to 52% in the general population. Around two-thirds of the PwD respondents who were advised to acquire aid appliances acquired them, implying limited access to AT. The probability of LFPR in disabled population increases by 26.6% with access to AT particularly in urban areas.

Persistent issues such as lack of adequate amenities, poor literacy and a lack of vocational skills need to be addressed to improve labour market outcomes for the disabled population in rural areas.

Despite its role in promoting distributive justice and inclusive development, research on equity gaps in access to AT and its impact on labour market outcomes is scant. This is the first paper that provides empirical evidence on the impact of access to AT on LFPR in the context of low- and middle-income countries.