Entry versus success in the labor force: Young women's employment in Sri Lanka

Women's labor force behavior in developing societies is examined through a household-level analysis of young, single women in Sri Lanka. It is argued that in the context of saturated and imperfect labor markets of Asian societies such as Sri Lanka, it is important to: 1. differentiate between labor force participation and employment, 2. consider familial and cultural factors in addition to the standard determinants of labor supply and demand, and 3. examine the labor force activity of the current generation of single women. The results strongly support the strategy of differentiating between labor force participation and employment. Higher education levels lead to greater labor force participation, but highly educated women are also more likely to be unemployed than to be employed.