Today, the developing world is marked by two contrasting scenarios: some countries exhibit significant gender gaps in labour force participation, while others do not. Closing the gender gaps in labour force participation has the potential to bring substantial economic benefits, empower women and girls and strengthen democracy (Karshenas and Moghadam 2021; Halim, O'Sullivan, and Sahay 2023). Therefore, particular attention should be given to the first group of countries, where there is a puzzling lack of women entering non-agricultural paid employment.
Existing scholarship often assumes that economic development alone determines women's employment patterns. For example, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Claudia Goldin (2021, 2014) proposes that development initiates a shift from family farm and unpaid work towards factories and paid work. However, this framework fails to explain why, despite economic development, regions such as South Asia and the Middle East & North Africa exhibit persistent gender gaps in the transition of labour from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors, effecting roughly 1 billion women’s lives.
Much of the research shares Goldin’s assumption that economic development is the main factor influencing the demand for and supply of women's labour. Demand-side studies focus on dynamics such as export-led growth and the sectoral composition of growth and assume that capitalist production determines women's non-agricultural employment (e.g., Bhalotra and Fernández 2023; Tunali, Kirdar, and Dayioglu 2021). However, they overlook that demand alone is insufficient when women’s labour is tied up with unpaid farm work. Supply-side research links gender gaps in labour force participation to lack of accessible childcare, but assumes that women's unpaid labour is limited only to the domestic sphere, where production is not market-driven (e.g., Olivetti and Petrongolo 2017; Oyvat and Onaran 2022). This neglects rural contexts, where women’s unpaid agricultural work – often tied to market-oriented production – takes precedence over care work.
My research offers new insights into the persistent gender gaps in labour force participation despite economic growth, showing how patriarchal land and labour systems in agriculture constrain women's access to non-agricultural paid employment. Drawing on cases from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, Morocco, and Egypt, I initially identified a strong correlation between gender-discriminatory land inheritance and several macro-economic outcomes: gender gaps in education and non-agricultural work; a reverse gender gap in unpaid farm labour; urban labour shortages; higher manufacturing wages; longer working hours; greater investment in manufacturing technology; entrenched patriarchal norms; and weaker democratic institutions (Kocabıçak 2023a, c, 2020).
To move beyond correlation, Dildar and I have recently investigated causality using cross-country panel data and a difference-in-differences case study from India (Kocabıçak and Dildar 2025). This analysis shows that legal discrimination against women in the inheritance of agricultural land curtails their participation in non-agricultural paid employment through several mechanisms: (1) confining women to unpaid work in agriculture, (2) restricting their access to education, and (3) preventing women from migrating to urban areas for education and employment. The cross-country panel data analysis further reveals that gender-based discriminatory land inheritance laws are associated with women’s disproportionate involvement in unpaid farm work, limited mobility, and restricted access to non-agricultural paid employment. Moreover, eliminating such legal discrimination alters women’s migration patterns by shifting them from marriage migration towards migration for education and employment, thereby increasing their participation in non-agricultural paid work.
My research, therefore, challenges the assumption that capitalist development exclusively leads to either pulling women into non-agricultural employment or confining their labour to the production of domestic goods and services. It rejects the notion that capitalist development is the sole determinant of patterns in women’s paid and unpaid work. Instead, I show the important role of the patriarchal relations of production in determining where women’s labour will be allocated: paid or unpaid work, domestic or market-oriented production.
This has significant implications for current policy interventions promoted by the UN and the World Bank, which tend to focus either on empowering rural women and girls as farmers or on reducing childcare costs in urban areas. The former is rooted in the flawed assumption that all rural women wish to remain on family farms, effectively denying them the right to pursue opportunities beyond the village. The latter overlooks the gendered patterns of rural-to-urban labour migration, resulting in increasing labour force participation among highly educated urban women but having limited impact on their less-educated counterparts (Kocabıçak 2023b). In light of the evidence I have analysed, I examine the potential of a transformative exit package that combines occupational training, guaranteed employment, and secure housing to support women and girls seeking to leave agriculture and pursue alternative livelihoods.
References:
Bhalotra, Sonia, and Manuel Fernández. 2023. "The Rise in Women’s Labor-Force Participation in Mexico—Supply vs. Demand Factors." The World Bank economic review. doi: 10.1093/wber/lhad025.
Goldin, Claudia. 2014. "A grand gender convergence: Its last chapter." The American economic review 104 (4):1091-1119. doi: 10.1257/aer.104.4.1091.
Goldin, Claudia. 2021. Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Halim, Daniel Zefanya, Michael B. O'Sullivan, and Abhilasha Sahay. 2023. Increasing Female Labor Force Participation. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group: World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series.
Karshenas, Massoud, and Valentine M. Moghadam. 2021. "Women’s employment and labour force participation: puzzles, problems and research needs." In The Routledge handbook on the Middle East economy, edited by Hassan Hakimian, 92- 105. London: Routledge.
Kocabıçak, Ece. 2020. "Why property matters? New varieties of domestic patriarchy in Turkey." Social Politics 28 (4). doi: 10.1093/sp/jxaa023.
Kocabıçak, Ece. 2023a. "Gendered Property and Labour Relations in Agriculture: Implications for Social Change in Turkey." Oxford Development Studies 50 (2):91-113. doi: 10.1080/13600818.2021.1929914.
Kocabıçak, Ece. 2023b. "The causes and the consequences of the patriarchal state: Evidence from Turkey." Women's Studies International Forum 98:102744. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102744.
Kocabıçak, Ece. 2023c. The Political Economy of Patriarchy in the Global South, Routledge Series of Gender and Economy. London, NY: Routledge.
Kocabıçak, Ece, and Yasemin Dildar. 2025. "Women’s labour force participation in developing countries: The impact of gendered landownership rights." World Development 193:107045. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107045.