The Deceleration of Female Labor Force Participation in Latin America

GASPARINI, LEONARDO; MARCHIONNI, MARIANA; BADARACCO, NICOLÁS; GLUZMANN, PABLO; SERRANO, JOAQUÍN

Congreso; Annual Meeting Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association; 2015

This paper documents changes in female labor force participation (LFP) in Latin America exploiting a large database of microdata from household surveys in the period 1992-2012. We find evidence for a significant deceleration in the growth of female LFP in the 2000s, that breaks the strong increasing pattern that characterized the region for at least 50 years. The paper documents and characterizes this pattern and examines various factors that could be driving the deceleration.