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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.

The article aims to identify the determinants of the urbanization process given the magnitude of this phenomenon and also its economic, social and environmental implications and pressure on public authorities to find viable solutions in the context of sustainable development.

The research is based on regression analysis with urbanization growth being the dependent variable and enrollment in higher education, GDP, value added by industry and female labor force as independent variables.

The main factors that favor urbanization are the increase in population, industry value-added and the female labor force. Urbanization is an objective that must be pursued differently by public authorities in developed and developing countries, given the different realities they face-population growth in developing countries, and population aging and international migration in developed countries.

The present research has limitations generated by the selection of independent variables, which is why in future directions, the research will consider the use of other indicators such as the number of graduates, exports as percent of GDP or migrations as a percentage of the total population. Given the complexity of the phenomenon of urbanization, future research will focus on groups of countries as they resulted from the clustering made by this article.

The impact of higher education on urbanization is low, which is why the intensification of partnerships between municipal authorities and universities could be a solution that ensures not only the transfer of knowledge from academia to the public sector but also from entrepreneurs increasingly aware of the importance of promoting SDGs for urban development in the context of the challenges posed by global warming. The involvement of women in the labor market is essential for the intensification of the urbanization process. The increasing presence of women in the labor market generates an increase in the income of families, an increase in the level of education and an intensification of national and international migration. The research findings can be used by policy and decision-makers to develop appropriate urbanization and education policies and strategies.

The existence of inhomogeneous clusters is noticeable, which demonstrates the complexity of the urbanization phenomenon that is present in all countries around the world, but under the influence of different factors such as the export of natural resources (mainly oil) or the intensification of industrial activity. Taking into account the variables used, this study stands out in the multitude of articles published in the international mainstream.

This study aims to analyse the condition of the elderly in poor households which includes two things. The first is the characteristics of the elderly in poor households and the effect of poverty on the economic activities of the elderly.

This research uses secondary data from the 2020 National Social Economic Survey.

Poverty status of households is proven to have an effect on the participation of the workforce and the work participation of the elderly. The poor elderly tend to have a greater chance of participation in economic activities than the non-poor elderly. The absence of pension and old age insurance also causes the elderly to continue working until old age. Working is one of the survival mechanisms for the elderly.

This research has analysed the two population problems, which are the aging population and poverty.

Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

Many European countries suspended mandatory conscription after the Cold War, and especially between 2000 and 2010. However, with the changing security situation in Europe, more and more countries are considering the re-introduction of the draft. That is why, it is important to evaluate the impact of conscription on draftees, including its effect on fertility outcomes. Additionally, fertility is of particular interest because birth rates have been below replacement levels in most European countries at least in the last two decades. This, combined with the increase in life expectancy, has contributed to aging population and raises concerns about the future economic prospects and sustainability of the continent. Military service could be related to fertility in several ways. Compulsory service for men would affect the marriage market and subsequently child-bearing outcomes. For example, men who serve in the military would have to delay higher education at least by a year, given that they plan to continue their education after high school. One possibility is that this leads to older men meeting younger women if partners meet at college. Alternatively, in case the partners know each other prior to the draft, service could delay marriage by up to a year due to the conscription, postponing planning and having children, and potentially having fewer children as women might be less able or less willing to have a child after a certain age. Finally, some men who plan and would otherwise continue their education might choose to not do so or to further postpone it once they disattach from studying during their service. For some men, this might influence their marital and subsequent fertility outcomes. In either of these scenarios, a draft or its suspension is likely to be connected to fertility.

This study examines the effect of the suspension of the draft in Spain in December 2001 on three fertility outcomes of men that would have been drafted in the absence of the suspension. The author performs the analysis in a difference-in-differences framework. Potential concerns and policy implications are also discussed.

The findings suggest that after the suspension of the draft, individuals started to have their first child earlier given that they decide to have children. Consistent with the overall time trend, they became less likely to have a child and started to have fewer children. However, the age at birth of the first child decreased while the number of children and the likelihood of having a child increased for men relative to women, after compared to before the suspension of the mandatory draft.

The author extends prior literature by investigating the effect of the abolition of compulsory military service in Spain in December 2001 on fertility. This is novel is several ways. First, to the best of the author’s knowledge, previous literature has examined the effect of this Spanish reform only on labor market outcomes prior to men's conscription. Second, even for other countries that terminated the compulsory draft, fertility has been under-studied, providing an opportunity for further exploration. Third, this analysis is based on rich Census data, representative of the population in Spain. Finally, given the inconclusive findings of previous studies for other countries and the proposed re-introduction of the draft in some parts of Europe, additional evidence of the effect of the conscription has important policy implications necessary for the evaluation of future military service policy decisions.

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.

Female entrepreneurship discussions will broaden and diversify as a result of global shifts. Studies of female entrepreneurship must take into account differences between male and female entrepreneurs due to the historical, cultural and social specificity of developing countries to narrow gender gaps, identify barriers, fine-tune support systems, release dormant potential and provide information for policymaking. This paper aims to measure and estimate the most crucial socioeconomic characteristics that Southeast Asian countries leverage to advance women’s business initiatives.

Using a panel data model whereby the Female Entrepreneurship Indicator Score serves as the dependent variable and the ten most important socioeconomic indicators serve as the independent variables. Ten southeast Asian countries are analyzed using the panel fixed effects approach of Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MM-QR) from 1980 to 2021.

It has been found by empirical panel quantile regression using the MM-QR method that the following indicators positively affect female entrepreneurship in southeast Asian countries: the assets indicator, the pay indicator, the workplace indicator, the mobility indicator and the a woman can sign a contract in the same way as a man indicator. But the parenthood indicator, the unemployment indicator, the school enrollment indicator, the men and women have equal ownership rights to immovable property indicator and the marriage indicator all have negative effects.

This paper uses a new method called MM-QR to look at how the most important socioeconomic factors affect female entrepreneurship in Southeast Asian countries. The results obtained will also add to and broaden the small amount of research that has been done on female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

High levels of youth unemployment in Africa, the difficulty of accessing salaried jobs, and the weakness of public institutions in charge of employment issues push youths towards informal channels that can help them find jobs. Among these informal channels, religion has been playing an increasingly important role. Thus, this study aimed to analyse the effects of religion on youths' access to self-employment.

This study used data from the survey on the improvement of youth employment policies in Francophone Africa—conducted in 2018 by the Laboratory for Economic and Social Research and Studies (LARES) of Marien Ngouabi University—to estimate the effects of religion on access to self-employment. The econometric model employed is a two-stage model. Conditional mixed process developed by Roodman (2011) was used to verify the model's robustness.

The results indicate that religion exhibits a positive and significant effect on access to self-employment. This effect is stronger for youths from Muslim communities than for those from other religious communities, compared to youths who do not engage in religious communities.

Based on the current dynamics observed in numerous African countries with respect to employment access, these results imply that religious denominations should be considered when developing policies and programs related to employment, particularly for youths.

The approach followed in this study contributes to the literature predominantly by demonstrating how the network theory approach helps explain, to some extent, the link between religion and access to employment in general and access to self-employment, particularly in developing economies—mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the recourse to informal channels of access to self-employment constitutes a significant solution approach for youths.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0097

This study aims to analyze the long-run dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and economic growth for developing nations.

This study develops a comprehensive financial inclusion index based on the UNDP methodology for 53 developing nations. The authors use second-generation unit root tests, cointegration techniques and an advanced dynamic common correlated effects estimator model called cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) to examine long-run dynamics among variables.

The tests confirm the presence of slope-heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency. The second-generation panel unit root tests show the chosen variables are stationary at first difference. The bootstrap Westerlund cointegration result shows the variables are cointegrated in the long run. The CS-ARDL estimates conclude that financial inclusion positively enhances gross domestic product per capita in selected developing countries. The robustness check through augmented mean group estimation validates the findings.

The study makes three important contributions: first, it constructs a comprehensive financial inclusion index using 10 variables for a panel of 53 developing nations; second, the potential cross-section dependence and slope heterogeneity of panel data have been accounted for by applying the second-generation unit root tests; third, the study uses the dynamic common correlated effects estimator model (CS-ARDL) to examine long-run dynamics among variables.

This study aims to examine the impact of fiscal space and governance quality on inclusive growth in African countries.

In total, 28 African countries were analyzed from 2000 to 2020 using the generalized method of moment regression method. An inclusive growth index was developed using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. The PCA-derived index incorporates factors such as poverty, income inequality, economic participation and per capita income.

The main findings suggest that fiscal space availability (de facto fiscal space and fiscal balance) promotes inclusive growth. The study also showed that lagged inclusive growth, digitalization and governance indicators positively influence inclusive growth. The study concludes that fiscal space availability fosters inclusive growth, but this effect is mediated by governance quality in Africa.

Several studies examined the role of fiscal policy on inclusive growth. However, it is crucial to assess the fiscal space, that is, the financial capacity of the government to implement its fiscal policy without harming its financial stability. This paper, therefore, contributes to the existing literature by using de facto fiscal space indicator to comprehend fiscal dynamics contributing to inclusive growth. In addition, the paper uniquely constructs an inclusive growth index by including poverty severity, which considers both the incidence and depth of poverty and inequality in society.