Women's Socio-economic Status in Employment Opportunities in Nigeria:Implication for Gender Disparity in Labour/ Industrial Market

In recent times, little is known about the level of gender inequality in the Nigerian labour /industrial market and how such inequality is explained by the characteristics of men and women in the labour market. Consequently, this study investigates women’s socio-economic status in employment opportunities in Nigeria. They study adopted a secondary data method. It used the 2008/2009 harmonised survey data especially the labour and employment component. Within the framework of Mincer type specification of wage equation, this study estimates ordinary least squares (OLS) at different levels of education. Heckman's two-step sample selection model was used to control for possible selection bias in the wage equation since this is always present in sample truncation. To explain gender gaps in earnings at different levels of education, Oaxaca type decomposition technique was employed in the analysis. The results show that there is a huge gender earnings gap to the disadvantage of women in the Nigerian labour market and that the level of this gap declines as the level of education increases. The study also finds that endowments which are the observed characteristics of men and women work to reduce the level of gender earnings gap significantly. This study recommends among other things, that government should ensure girls obtain higher educational qualifications by providing them support beyond primary and secondary education. Also, women should be encouraged to participate in the nonwage labour market activities since most of these activities have higher earnings potential.