Page 85 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.80, # 1, 2023, pp. 83-93

Thus, considering that gender equality in the labor market is an important issue from
both the perspective of economic development and human rights, the issue requires
extensive theoretical and empirical analysis to be able to develop qualitative policy
recommendations for Azerbaijani government to overcome this issue.

In this regard, we refer the views of the State Statistics Committee of the Republic of
Azerbaijan which claims that the economic growth in the country is followed by the
increase in the share of women in employment. Therefore, the research proposed in
this paper will aim to analyze how the economic development affects the pattern of
gender pay gap in Azerbaijan. The main hypothesis of the paper is that as Statics
Committee mentioned there is negative correlation between gender wage gap and
economic growth. During the analysis of the hypothesis, a regression model will be
developed where the dependent variable will difference between average wages of
female and male workers whereas main independent variable will GDP (Gross
Domestic Product) per capita of the country, additionally there will be several control
variables such as Gini (inequality) coefficient and literacy rate.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Gender inequality reveals itself in different fields of modern society such as business world,
family life and so on. Yet, in this literature we will investigate particularly how this type of
discriminative behaviors affects women’s earnings and career planning. Additionally, we
will also explore the correlation between gender inequality in labor market and economic
growth and possible analysis methods to seek solutions for the problem.

The facts support the idea that there is considerable gender pay gap in the Azerbaijan
economy. For instance, Klarven (2020) found that almost half of the labor force in
Azerbaijan consists of women whereas in some industries the share of women
employees is more than that of male employees. Yet approximately 50% of women
workers in Azerbaijan work in the bottom of the labor market with comparably lower
level of wage. Although Klarven stated these facts by supporting relevant data,
Karimova (2020) went to deeper to investigate the roots of this gender inequality in
Azerbaijan. In this regard she conducted research in the education industry by
including around 15 control variables such as gender, religion, marital status, foreign
language skills, education levels and so on. She found the main reasons for gap
between the earning of two genders are social and religious aspects, which affects
women’s career options, promotion and even selection to the vacancy.

However, there are also optimistic updates where several articles conclude that
economic growth can defeat gender discrimination in the labor market of the country.

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