Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/308288 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17429
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Developing countries face significant challenges in increasing women's labor force participation and improving job quality, partly due to the substantial presence of the informal sector. This paper examines the case of Bolivia, which has the highest level of informality in Latin America. We empirically investigate whether the expansion of children's access to education in Bolivia provides an additional explanation for the reduction in female participation in the informal sector, as children attending school would require less parental supervision. Using a structural model in which mothers decide to participate in formal markets at a cost inversely related to the likelihood of their children being enrolled in school, we find that the rise in primary school enrollment in Bolivia explains up to 40% of the decline in female workers under age 40 in informal markets. Our findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the positive impact of children's access to education on women's labor market outcomes in developing countries.
Subjects: 
Bolivia
female labor force participation
structural estimation
JEL: 
C62
D13
J12
J13
J16
J21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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