The Impact of Female Labor Force Participation on Economic Development of the ECCAS Countries

This paper examines the impact of female labor force participation on economic growth of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) countries. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed using the annual data of each member state during 1990 to 2019. GDP per capita is used to measure economic development. Our results show that the female labor force participation has a long-term positive effect on economic growth for the case of Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and Chad. It has no effect on economic development of Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sao Tome. Besides, the important control variables are incorporated into the estimations in order to investigate the determinants of economic development of the ECCAS nations. They are male labor force participation, gross capital formation, human capital index, and government expenditure, respectively. The empirical findings provide the crucial policy recommendations to the ECCAS countries.