Despite rapidly rising female educational attainment and the closing if not reversal of the gender gap in education, female labor force participation rates in the MENA region remain low and stagnant, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the "MENA paradox." Even if increases in participation are observed, they are typically in the form of rising unemployment. We argue in this paper that female labor force participation among educated women in four MENA countries - Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia - is constrained by adverse developments in the structure of employment opportunities on the demand side. Specifically, we argue that the contraction in public sector employment opportunities has not been made up by a commensurate increase in opportunities in the formal private sector, leading to increases in female unemployment or declines in participation. We use multinomial logit models estimated on annual labor force survey data by country to simulate trends in female participation in different labor market states (public sector, private wage work, non-wage work, unemployment and non-participation) for married and unmarried women of a given educational and age profile. Our results confirm that the decline in the probability of public sector employment for women with higher education is associated with either an increase in unemployment or a decline in participation.

中文翻译：

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解释 MENA 悖论：教育程度提高但女性劳动力参与率停滞不前

尽管女性受教育程度迅速提高，教育方面的性别差距正在缩小，但中东和北非地区的女性劳动力参与率仍然很低且停滞不前，这种现象被称为“中东和北非悖论”。即使观察到参与增加，它们通常也表现为失业率上升。我们在本文中认为，四个 MENA 国家（阿尔及利亚、埃及、约旦和突尼斯）中受过教育的女性劳动力参与受到需求方就业机会结构不利发展的限制。具体而言，我们认为公共部门就业机会的减少并没有被正规私营部门机会的相应增加所弥补，导致女性失业率上升或参与率下降。我们使用根据国家年度劳动力调查数据估计的多项 logit 模型来模拟已婚和未婚妇女在不同劳动力市场状态（公共部门、私人带薪工作、非带薪工作、失业和不参与）中的女性参与趋势。给定的教育和年龄概况。我们的结果证实，受过高等教育的女性在公共部门就业的可能性下降与失业率增加或参与率下降有关。失业和不参与），适用于具有特定教育和年龄特征的已婚和未婚妇女。我们的结果证实，受过高等教育的女性在公共部门就业的可能性下降与失业率增加或参与率下降有关。失业和不参与），适用于具有特定教育和年龄特征的已婚和未婚妇女。我们的结果证实，受过高等教育的女性在公共部门就业的可能性下降与失业率增加或参与率下降有关。