Measuring the extent of Gender Segregation in the Labour Market: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

This paper makes an attempt to investigate the extent of gender segregation in the Ghanaian labour market using widely used indexes. An assessment of gender differences in the labour market points to a relatively high, but rapidly declining female labour force participation and employment rates in the 1990s as per the GLSS 3&4. The 2000 population census however, puts the employment and participation rate of women marginally below their male counterpart. The market is found to be characterised by higher and increasing unemployment and underemployment rates among women than men and declining female-male earning ratio on account of the concentration of females in low rewarded and less prestigious jobs. A measure of gender segregation however reveals a generally low segregation in the Ghanaian labour market based on distribution of employment by sector, type of employment, occupation and industry. The study nevertheless finds the index as an increasing function of the number of disaggregated groups in the labour force distribution and that the degree of segregation depends on the type of index.