Analyzing factors influencing labor market participation: a logistic regression approach

Abstract

Covid-19 lockdown containment measures severely affected many individuals globally in terms of movement restrictions, business growth, job loss and participation in the labour market. In Uganda, the Covid-19 lockdown containment measures led to the closure of many businesses which affected the participation of individuals in the labour market and thus, remain jobless. There is scarcity of studies on the effect of Covid-19 on labour market participation especially in the case of Uganda. Therefore, this study sought to examine the effect of Covid-19 lockdown containment measures on labour market participation in Uganda. After obtaining the data from the World bank from the world development indicators file, the study employed the pairwise correlation to assess the nature and direction of relationship between the labor market participation and COVID-19 as well as the rest of the study variables. The outcome variable was categorized into binary levels to fit a logistic regression model to estimate the odds of participating in the market by the considered predictors. In addition, marginal effects were also estimated for every independent variable to find out the probability of enhancing labor market participation for each unit increase in the income and COVID-19. Education and age significantly influence labor market participation, with older individuals having higher odds. GDP per capita positively impacts participation, while livestock farming significantly increases it. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased labor market participation, with a significant increase after the pandemic, indicating a positive impact on individuals' participation in the labor market. Key Words: Covid-19; Labour Market Participation; Uganda