Project 4 will generate one paper on the drivers of occupational and sectoral segregation by gender, focusing on the direct and indirect effect of economic growth; a second paper will use panel data from Uganda, South Africa and Vietnam to analyze how occupational and sectoral segregation emerges during the school to work and job transitions for males and females.



How do growth and structural change affect occupational and sectoral segregation by gender? Occupational and sectoral segregation by gender in developing countries has received little attention in the literature, despite its importance for female empowerment and gender pay gaps. We will study how economic growth, structural change, trade openness, human capital, and fertility affect occupational and sectoral segregation using cross-country analyses and country case studies; the cross-country analyses will make use of the World Bank's I2D2 database which includes custom-made panel data on occupational and sectoral segregation from 63 developing countries, the largest available comparable database on this issue. In addition, we will use panel data from South Africa, Uganda, and Vietnam to study drivers of change in occupational and sectoral segregation at the household level by studying school-to-work transitions and job changes for males and females over time. Following hypotheses developed in project 1, we seek to particularly identify the drivers of segregation that are most amenable to policy action.