Does women labour force participation contribute to economic growth? Empirical evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

This study empirically examines the impact of female labour force on Nigeria’s economic growth from 1980 to 2018. Both ADF and PP techniques were employed in order to check for the stationarity of the time series data. From the stationarity result, all the variables were found to be stationary at level. Johansen co integration test was also employed whereby existence of long run relationship among the variables was established. Ordinary least square OLS method was used to estimate the parameters of the model. The OLS results revealed that both male and female labour force participation has positive and significant impact on Nigeria’s economic growth over the period of study in both short run and long run, even though our main focus is on the coefficient of female labour force. The study therefore recommends that a policy that will give equal job opportunity as well as equal training and education across genders should be given priority.