Economics & Sociology

The paper contributes by providing new insights into the relationship between female labor force and eco- nomic growth in 162 world countries over the period 1990- 2012. It was hypothesized that an analysis would reveal a U-shaped relationship between female labor force partici- pation and economic growth. The analysis is run from two different perspectives – in the first, the relationship is exam- ined for a sample encompassing 162 countries; and in the second – the evidence is disaggregated and the relationship is re-examined within four income-groups (low-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income and high-in- come). To examine these relationships, data on female la- bor force participation and per capita income are extracted from the World Development Indicators 2013 database, and the relationship is examined by deploying panel data analysis assuming non-linearity between variables. The main findings support the hypothesis of the U-shaped relation- ship between female labor force participation and economic growth, however high cross-country variability on the field is reported. Moreover, the U-shaped feminization hypoth- esis was not positively verified in the case of low-income countries.