Women's Labour Supply and Household Insurance in Africa

This paper investigates whether cyclical variation in women´s labour supply in Africa contributes to smoothing household consumption. We find little support for this hypothesis. Using comparable individual data on about 0.5 million women in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries merged with country level panel data on GDP during 1987-2006, we find that the within-country relationship of women´s employment and income is, on average, positive. This finding is robust to controls for country-specific trends and potentially correlated shocks. Examination of business cycle variation in the distribution of women´s employment across sectors suggests that recessions are associated with increases in unemployment and self-employment relative to paid employment. The results have potentially important implications for understanding coping mechanisms, labour markets, fertility timing, and investments in children.