Labour force participation of Young educated women in Uganda
Abstract
The present patterns of Labour Force Participation in Africa and the rest of the world at large rank female at lower rates as compared to males. Therefore there was argent need to assess Female Labour Force Participation of young educated women in Uganda. Specifically this study assessed the association of Female Labour Force Participation with marital status, region, age monthly income and hours of work in educated young women in Uganda. The assessment was done using UNHS 2016/2017 data collected by UBOS and a binary logistic model was used to assess the association of Female Labour Force Participation with a potential set of determinants.
The study considered 1,564 educated (at least diploma holders) females which constituted 11.1% of all the females in the UNHS 2016/2017; majority (58.6%) of these were never married and 38.6% were married. As regards to region, 34.3% were from Central, 23.5% Western, 22.3% Northern and 19.9% from Eastern, Uganda. On average they were aged 25 years. Majority (52.3%) of the women (18-65) were working for a wage, salary, commission or any payment in return and of those 29.1% were self-employed, and 61.6% were employees. About 28.2% were employed on a verbal contract and 27.2% were not satisfied with their current jobs and 36.8% wanted to change their current jobs. Majority (58.6%) of those that were not employed were not actively looking for work or trying to start a business in the last 30 days. Female Labour Force Participation status was influenced by region of residence and marital status, in that women in Northern region had almost half the odds of not being employed as compared to women in Central Uganda and women who were never married were more likely to actively participate in labourforce.
As regards to those educated women that were working, on average they worked for 46 hours per week and earned a median income of Ug.Shs 345,000 and for those that were not employed on average they had spent 3 months actively looking for work or trying to start up a business