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This paper contributes to better understanding firms' discriminatory behavior in the presence of gender-based legal discrimination and its linkages with labor market outcomes for women in a developing country setting. Using data collected through the World Bank Enterprise Surveys in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the paper documents the existence of nonnegligible employer discrimination and limitations in women's autonomy in the presence of a discriminatory environment. Interestingly, these are more pervasive outside the capital city, Kinshasa, which suggests that cultural norms or differences in regulation enforcement may be at play. The paper also finds that firms' discriminatory behavior harms women's labor market outcomes, in their representation among the upper echelons of management and participation in the overall workforce. The negative relationship between restrictions from discriminatory behaviors and female employment is particularly strong in the manufacturing sector.

Africa Gender Policy --- Discrimination --- Employment --- Enterprise Survey --- Female Employment --- Gender --- Gender Bias --- Kinshasa --- Labor Market --- Law and Development --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development

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This paper analyzes a four-arm randomized evaluation of a multi-faceted economic inclusion intervention delivered by the Government of Niger to female beneficiaries of a national cash transfer program. All three treatment arms include a core package of group savings promotion, coaching, and entrepreneurship training, in addition to the regular cash transfers from the national program. The first variant also includes a lump-sum cash grant and is similar to a traditional graduation intervention ("capital" package). The second variant substitutes the cash grant with psychosocial interventions ("psychosocial" package). The third variant includes the cash grant and the psychosocial interventions ("full" package). The control group only receives the regular cash transfers from the national program. All three treatments generate large impacts on consumption and food security six and 18 months post-intervention. They increase participation and profits in women-led off-farm business and livestock activities, as well as improve various dimensions of psychosocial well-being. The impacts tend to be larger in the full treatment, followed by the capital and psychosocial treatments. Consumption impacts up to 18 months after the intervention already exceed costs in the psychosocial package (the benefit-cost ratio for the psychosocial package is 126 percent; full package, 95 percent; and capital package, 58 percent). These results highlight the value of addressing psychosocial constraints as well as capital constraints in government-implemented poverty reduction programs.

Africa Gender Policy --- Cash Grant --- Economic Inclusion --- Field Experiment --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Graduation --- Livelihoods --- Living Standards --- Poverty --- Poverty Reduction --- Psychosocial --- Services and Transfers to Poor --- Social Protections and Assistance --- Social Protections and Labor

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Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face a rapidly growing population and labor force in demand of good jobs. Ethiopia has reacted to this challenge by prioritizing large-scale industrial development through the construction of industrial parks to drive exports, job creation, and growth. However, the African experience with industrial parks so far has been mixed. To provide further evidence on the welfare effects of factory jobs in Ethiopia, this study conducted an experiment that facilitated the job application and onboarding process for young female job seekers at three factories. Using panel data from 827 applicants, the study finds that the extra support increased the likelihood of being employed in the treatment group in the short run, largely driven by wage and factory work. Further, the intervention raised reported monthly income by nearly 30 percent in the treatment group. However, the study also finds an adverse impact on health outcomes as well as downward adjustments of applicants' expectations and perceptions of the earnings potential and desirability of factory work in response to the treatment.

Africa Gender Policy --- Employment and Unemployment --- Exports --- Factory Job --- Female Employment --- Female Labor Force Participation --- Gender --- Gender and Economics --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Industrial Parks --- Job Assistance --- Labor Markets --- Social Protections and Assistance --- Social Protections and Labor --- Women and Employment

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This paper investigates whether the relative self-esteem level of spouses can lead to within- household competition for inputs and affect economic gender inequality in the home. Using data on smallholder farmer couples in Cote d'Ivoire, the paper examines the relationship between spouses' self-esteem and income-earning in agriculture. Although the link between own self-esteem and crop income earning is positive, there is a "battle of the sexes" in which one spouse's self-esteem is negatively related to the other's income earning, particularly income earning in higher-value, export-oriented agriculture. Women's outcomes are more sensitive to their own self-esteem (positively) and to their partners' (negatively) than men's. This negative relationship is driven by individuals during middle age, when self-esteem is considered most stable. A key channel through which self-esteem appears to matter is by increasing control over household land, which is a scarce but crucial input to agricultural production. In addition to confirming the importance of noncognitive skills for poverty reduction in rural settings, the findings highlight the importance of their impact on intra- and inter-household inequality, especially in the presence of interlocking market failures constraining the supply of inputs to production.

Africa Gender Policy --- Agricultural Investment --- Cognitive Skills --- Export Crops --- Gender and Development --- Gender and Rural Development --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Inequality --- Land Rights --- Psychology --- Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction --- Self-Esteem --- Socioeconomic Skills --- Wages, Compensation and Benefits

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Occupational sex segregation is a key driver of the gender gap in earnings. Using data from 11,691 aspiring agribusiness entrepreneurs across five states in Nigeria, this paper explores the gender gap in the sectoral choice decision, and especially the role played by norms around gender roles. When given a choice of 11 agricultural value chains in a government program, the majority (54 percent) of the entrepreneurs chose to enter into poultry, a value chain with relatively lower profit potential, and women were more likely to choose poultry than men. This paper finds evidence of more restrictive gender norms in Northern States, which lowers women's likelihood of crossing over to potentially more lucrative value chains. The gender gap in sectoral choice is also attributed to differences in work experience especially in agricultural activities and in the chosen value chain, as well as in land ownership and differential access to tertiary-level education. The paper shows that women with more experience in male-dominated value chains exhibit lower self-efficacy, which could reflect the challenges they face when deviating from social norms to operate within these sectors.

Africa Gender Policy --- Agriculture --- Entrepreneurship --- Gender --- Gender and Development --- Gender and Rural Development --- Gender and Social Development --- Gender Innovation Lab --- Labor Markets --- Occupational Segregation --- Social Norms --- Social Protections and Labor --- Socioemotional Skills --- Woman and Agriculture