The Aggregate Gains of Eliminating Gender and Ethnic Gaps in the Malaysian Labor Market 2020 | The World Bank | 26 February 2020 | Sasana Kijang, Bank Negara Malaysia, 2, Jalan Dato Onn, Kuala Lumpur, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

In recent years, several papers have calculated the macroeconomic costs associated with gender gaps in the labor market (see, for example, Cavalcanti and Tavares (2015) and Cuberes and Teignier (2016). On the other hand, some papers have also used the concept of misallocation of inputs to calculate the costs of excluding certain minority groups from the labor market (Hsieh et al. 2013). In this paper we use data from Malaysia to calculate the gains of eliminating gender and ethnic labor market gaps in Malaysia for the period 2010-2017. More specifically, we focus on gaps in terms of employment, in general, as well as entrepreneurship. The calculations of gender gaps are also carried out for different age groups and different ethnic groups using the same methodology as Cuberes and Teignier (2016) and Cuberes and Teignier (2019). There is a vast literature documenting the presence of gender gaps in the labor market in both developing and developed countries. Women are often underrepresented in the labor force in general, but especially in entrepreneurial occupations.

2020 Speakers

David Cuberes
Associate Professor of Economics at Clark University (USA)

Marc Teignier
Lecturer Professor at the University of Barcelona