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This paper aims to analyse the magnitude of the gender wage disparity in the public and private sectors in Mauritius across both mean differentials and overall wage distribution. The paper then decomposed the gender wage differential using the Oaxaca and Blinder (1973) decomposition technique.

The study uses cross-sectional data from the Continuous Multi-Purpose Household Budget Survey (CMPHS), from 2006 to 2013. The sample size on average is around 12,000 households surveyed per year.

The results reveal that that gender wage differentials are prevalent in both economic sectors; however, the disparity is more pronounced in the private sector. In addition, the differences in wages are larger at the bottom compared to the top end of the wage distribution, suggesting the presence of sticky floors. Lastly, it was observed that the unexplained wage gap (discrimination) is higher in the private sector than in public sector across the years.

The literature on the gender wage gap in Africa is limited. This paper adds to the existing literature on gender wage differential with an analysis of the gender wage disparity across the public and private sectors in Mauritius.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the drinking behaviour of alcohol dependents in the small island economy Mauritius, which is characterised by different cultures and ethnic groups. The drinking culture of Mauritius as a nation has dramatically changed over recent decades.

The analysis is based on a survey carried out on 300 alcohol dependents in different regions across the island in 2012. Information on alcohol consumption is derived from data obtained on the different types of drink consumed, their drinking preferences and habits, combined with information from the respondents on their alcohol intake. Alcohol-dependent individuals in this study are defined as those people who drink every day, drink in the morning before work and also drink during their working hours. Furthermore, they may also drink to get drunk and may encounter alcohol-related health problems.

The results first reveal that there is a gender gap in alcohol consumption with men being more dependent on alcoholic beverages on a daily basis, in the morning and at work. Second, the paper innovates by focussing on the most vulnerable segment of the population, that is those working in the informal sector. There is evidence that operating in the informal sector or being self-employed enhances the probability of the individual to become alcohol dependent through daily intake and consumption at the workplace. Informality is characterised by low wages, poor working conditions and high vulnerability which makes alcohol an escape avenue from financial difficulties. Consumption of other substances is also entwined with alcohol intake.

The authors focus on the characteristics and behaviour of alcohol-dependent individuals in a small pluriethnic changing society.

The purpose of this paper is to test the female entrepreneurship underperformance hypothesis using a sample of small firms. The paper also attempts to explain why gender matters in entrepreneurship. The paper specifically investigates the differences in turnover of female and male entrepreneurs and also examines the reasons behind this differential performance by accounting for the gender factor.

This study uses survey data on 256 male and female entrepreneurs from the Island of Mauritius. The survey allows for the examination of the performance differential across male- and female-owned small businesses. The paper uses ordinary least squares and logistic estimation techniques to investigate the underperformance of female entrepreneurs. Sensitivity analyses are also undertaken to ensure robustness of the results.

The study finds evidence that gender matters when comparing the performance of male- and female-owned businesses. The results reveal that access to finance is an important hindrance to the performance of these small firms. Furthermore, the study also reveals that ethnicity plays a major role in influencing firm performance.

This paper is among the few studies, which investigates the female entrepreneurship underperformance hypothesis in a small developing state context and also attempts to explain the reasons why gender matters. The paper is an important empirical contribution to the literature in an African context.

This paper aims to examine the employment effect of the minimum wage in Mauritius, a country that has recently introduced an economy-wide national minimum wage. As women have low labor force participation rate and higher unemployment rate compared to men, this study sheds light on the impact of the national minimum wage on male and female employment.

A conceptual framework based on the labor–leisure model of Blundell et al. (2007) incorporating the minimum wage as an important variable influencing the employment decision of the individual serves as the methodological backdrop of this paper. It applies the difference-in-difference estimation technique and uses micro data from the Continuous Multi-Purpose Household Survey for the period 2017–2019.

The results show that minimum wage has a significant negative impact on overall employment. With the imposition of the national minimum wage, the probability that an individual, currently earning less than the minimum wage, remains employed is 0.525 lower than that of a worker earning above the minimum wage level. Moreover, using sex-disaggregated data, the analysis demonstrates the negative employment effects of the minimum wage adversely impact women more than men.

This is a first attempt to estimate the effect of the newly introduced national minimum wage on employment in Mauritius. While the effects of a minimum wage vary across different segments of the economy, this study adopts a gender perspective by comparing the impact of the minimum wage on male and female employment.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the socio-economic characteristics of workers engaged in vulnerable jobs in Mauritius. The study has a particular focus on the gender and youth dimensions of vulnerable employment. The study also provides a pre-crisis and post-crisis analysis of vulnerable employment.

The paper uses several waves of the continuous multi-purpose household survey, which is a high-quality individual-level data set, to study vulnerable employment. Several definitions of vulnerable employment are used to identify the workers employed in vulnerable jobs. These include “own-account” workers and “contributing family workers”.

The results obtained suggest that women and young workers have a lower probability of being in vulnerable employment. Marital status, age and education are also important variables influencing the probability of being in vulnerable employment.

The paper has important policy implications regarding welfare and education policies. Appropriate mechanisms need to be put in place for the social protection and training of workers so that they do not end up in vulnerable jobs.

This paper studies Mauritius as it is a small island economy vulnerable to external shocks. Vulnerable unemployment has often been understudied as the focus of many studies has been solely on employment, and the quality of employment has often not been considered.

Using panel data for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member states, the present study explored the role of RCEP negotiations on tourism development.

A dynamic econometric model, namely the panel autoregressive dynamic lag model (PARDL) has been used. To test for panel causality, Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality tests were used.

Through the use of a dynamic econometric model, namely the PARDL, the results show that the RCEP negotiations, growth rates, as well as international trade contribute towards tourism development. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality tests confirm the existence of a bidirectional causal link between tourism development and RCEP negotiations. Finally, a unidirectional causal link is observed between tourism development and international trade.

This existing evidence on the topic seems to be very scant and limited to specific regions and particular regional trade agreements. This paper thus fills an important gap in the literature by advancing evidence about the effects of the RCEP on international tourism flows across member countries.

The paper innovates on the existing literature by assessing the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) tertiary education enrolment and career choice in a small country setting and by extending on Master and Meltzoff (2016) theoretical framework to provide a holistic explanation of the gender disparity through a mix of personal, environmental and behavioural factors. The study first probes into the existence of potential gender disparity in STEM tertiary enrolment in Mauritius. Second, in contrast with existing studies where selective factors are used to measure the gender gap in STEM education, this paper investigates into a combination of personal, environmental and behavioural factors that may influence participation in STEM education and career.

The study uses a survey of 209 undergraduates enroled in the main public university and investigates into the existence of a gender gap in STEM tertiary education enrolment and the reasons behind this disparity. Consistent with the theoretical model, the empirical analysis also investigates into the work environment (which cannot be measured from the survey), via semi-structured interviews of 15 women in STEM professions.

The logit regression results first reveal the existence of a gender disparity in the choice of STEM-related degrees. The probability of a female student to enrol in a STEM degree is lower than that of a male student, after controlling for all the personal, environmental and behavioural factors. The most important set of reasons influencing the student's STEM degree choice are self-efficacy and the student's academic performance in STEM subjects at secondary school level. The findings also demonstrate that young women are relatively more likely to choose STEM degrees than their male counterparts when they are supported by their family, school and teachers. There is further evidence of lower participation of women in STEM professions as well as significant challenges which women in STEM careers face compared to their male colleagues.

This study adopts a holistic framework to assess the factors that hinder women's participation in STEM tertiary education and career in Mauritius.

The paper investigates into the human capital–economic growth nexus by arguing that investment in early education and health helps in achieving higher economic growth. Early investment in human capital matters most for economic growth than the increase in human capital over the years.

A dynamic vector error correction model (VECM) together with the impulse response function and variance decomposition are used on data for Mauritius from 1983 to 2019. The paper distinguishes between the short-run and the long-run effects of human capital measured by the pupil–teacher ratio in pre-primary education and life expectancy at birth.

This study’s findings reveal that investment in early education and health has contributed positively to growth performance. There is evidence for long-run growth effects arising from a positive shock in the education and health indicators.

This paper contributes to both the theoretical and empirical literature on the human capital–growth nexus. Mauritius as a natural resource poor small economy is an important case study as it has started early in investing in its people to promote economic growth.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2021-0674.

This study aims at evaluating the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the export trade system for Mauritius during the first half of 2020 (January 2020–June 2020).

An initial analysis of the monthly export time series data proves that on the whole, the series have diverged from their actual trends after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic: observed values are less than those predicted by the selected optimal forecast models. The authors subsequently employ the Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) framework for causal analysis to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the island's export system.

Overall, the findings show that the COVID-19 pandemic has a statistically significant and negative impact on the Mauritian export trade system, with the five main export trading partners and sectors the most affected. Despite that the impact in some cases is not apparent for the period of study, the results indicate that total exports will surely be affected by the pandemic in the long run. Nevertheless, this depends on the measures taken both locally and globally to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.

This study thus contributes to the growing literature on the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by focussing on a small island economy.

Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are complex and have multifaceted effects on countries in an unpredictable and unprecedented manner. While both COVID-19 and the climate crisis share similarities, they also have some notable differences. Being both systemic in nature with knock-on and cascading effects that propagate due to high connectedness of countries, COVID-19, however, presents imminent and directly visible dangers, while the risks from climate change are gradual, cumulative and often distributed dangers. Climate change has more significant medium and long-term impacts which are likely to worsen over time. There is no vaccine for climate change compared to COVID-19. In addition, those most affected by extreme climatic conditions have usually contributed the least to the root causes of the crisis. This is in fact the case of island economies. The chapter thus investigates into the vulnerability and resilience of 38 Small Islands Developing States (SIDs) to both shocks. Adopting a comprehensive conceptual framework and data on various indices from the literature and global databases, we assess the COVID-19 and climate change vulnerabilities of SIDs on multiple fronts. The results first reveal a higher vulnerability across all dimensions for the Pacific islands compared to the other islands in the sample. There is also evidence of a weak correlation between climate change risk and the COVID-19 pandemic confirming our premise that there are marked differences between these two shocks and their impacts on island communities.