Does Climate Change Hinder Women's Participation in the Labour Market in Africa?

ABSTRACT Climate change remains a global threat whose disparate and controversial impacts over the past three decades have fuelled an extremely fertile literature. In this article, we analyse its effects on women's participation in the labour market (WPLM) based on a sample of 48 African countries. For this purpose, we consider two dimensions of climate change (temperature and rainfall), then specify and estimate a dynamic panel data model using the System Generalised Method of Moments (S‐GMM) over the period 2000–2019. Our results show that approximate climate change significantly reduces women's labour market participation in Africa due to exposure to greater vulnerability, particularly with respect to agriculture, which is their main source of income. The robustness of the results is demonstrated by the women's sectoral employment in agriculture, industry and services through Africa. We suggest the effectiveness of sustainable climate policies to consolidate and ensure better integration of women in the labour market and improve the gender equity in the African workforce.