Arab Educational Information Network

This paper aims at investigating the impact of both women cumulative empowerment and educational gap on the participation of women in the labor force in the Arab countries. The study sample includes Arab countries that are included in the Global Gender Gap Reports during the years (2006-2015). Using panel data, several econometrics models were estimated. Evidently, women cumulative empowerment has a significant positive impact on women's participation in the labor force for the whole sample, and the educational gender gap has an effect in both ways positive and negative. After dividing Arab countries according to income groups, it is found that, for high-income and lower middle income countries, there is a positive significant impact. However, the results do not support any significant impact for women empowerment on women's participation in the labor force in the upper middle income countries. In addition, the results do not support any significant impact for the educational gap on women's participation in the labor force. (Published abstract)