Adequacy of Government Support in Ameliorating Female Labor Force Participation in Sri Lanka: Analysis at Provincial Level

Abstract

Gender discrimination has been a predominant issue in the global context due to which the labor force productivity has been affected in an adverse manner. In Sri Lankan context, there has been a deterioration in the female labor force participation rate during the past decades due to several causes such as childbearing, wage discrimination, lack of access to infrastructure and corruption in the political system, etc. The key objective of the study is to analyze whether Sri Lankan government policies have been diverted towards the drivers of the female labor force participation and the adequacy of the support extended by the government in encouraging women to participate in the labor force. The study utilizes mixed method sequential explanatory design approach in which a mix of quantitative and qualitative analyses was used. In relation to the quantitative analysis, period random effect model has been performed using secondary data. To carry out the qualitative analysis, 18 semi-structured interviews have been performed by selecting 2 respondents from each province within the age range of 30 – 50 (graduate and non-graduate) who were not participating in the labor force. As per the results of the model, it turned out that an increment in budget allocation for education, availability of public transportation services and telecommunication services leads to a significant increment in the female labor force participation rate. Furthermore, the study corroborated that the support extended by the government was not adequate in ameliorating female labor force participation in Sri Lanka