Health and Female Labour Market Participation: The Case of Uganda

There is growing evidence that reducing gender inequality in access to the job market and control of key productive resources necessary for growth are concrete means of accelerating and diversifying growth, making it more sustainable, and ensuring that the poor both contribute to, and benefit from, that growth (see, for example, World Bank 2001, Blackden et al. 2007). This has resulted in a common finding in many developing countries during the past decade that there has been a substantial growth in female employment (Standing 1999). Despite this, countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are still characterized by an underutilization of their female labour, of which human capital, and health in particular, plays a major role. In many sub-Saharan African countries, as in many other developing countries, women who participate in the labour market are more likely to be in self-employment or, more generally, informal sector employment (Glick and Sahn 1997).