Evaluation of the Impact of Women’s Employment on GDP Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression

This study analyzes the impact of women's employment rates on GDP in Hungary, Czechia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, which have different trends in women's employment in relation to their social structures compared with Western European countries. Although many structural reforms have been implemented in recent years to increase women's employment, the countries considered in this study have lower employment rates, gender inequalities, and interruptions in women's career processes due to gender roles more frequently than in Western European countries. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, and Poland are among the former Eastern Bloc countries. For this reason, there is an employment structure that comes from the past and differs from Western European experience. The full employment policy and high public expenditures experienced by the former Eastern bloc countries in the past were replaced by efforts to adapt to the free-market economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although Greece has no Eastern Bloc experience, it falls behind Western Europe in terms of chronic problems like unemployment and gender inequalities. Although Greece does not have an Eastern bloc experience, it lags Western Europe in terms of chronic problems, such as high unemployment and gender inequalities. This study aims to examine the relationship between women's employment and GDP from a regional perspective and to suggest policies that can be implemented in this direction. With the help of GDP, female employment rate, urban population ratio, trade as a share of GDP, and final consumption expenditure data of the six countries for the period 1992-2022, estimates were made using the seemingly unrelated regression model (SUR). The SUR used in this study uses the correlation between the error terms in various equations to produce more accurate forecasts. When error terms are correlated, SUR uses this information to produce more accurate parameter estimates. Therefore, SUR is effective for modelling many dependent variables that may be affected by different conditions. In other words, SUR enables more comprehensive testing of economic hypotheses with many interdependent variables. Thus, it is a useful tool for regional analysis. To use the SUR model, the time unit should be at least 30 periods, and the number of units considered should be less than 10. In this study, while the female employment rate was statistically insignificant for Poland, Romania, and Greece, the effect of the female employment rate on GDP in Hungary, Czechia, and Bulgaria was 0.13%, 0.50%, and 0.23%, respectively. According to the general results of the SUR model, a 1% increase in female employment leads to an increase of approximately 0.16% in the GDP. In all the countries included in the study, final consumption expenditure was found to be the variable with the most intensive effect on GDP. This study is unique in that it addresses both the current period interval and econometric methodology used. With the help of the SUR model, both country-specific and holistic results of the six countries in general can be handled.