CAN FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION, FERTILITY RATE AND UNEMPLOYMENT AFFECT PER CAPITA INCOME? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF ASEAN COUNTRIES

Abstract

Female labor force participation, fertility rate and unemployment are very sensitive and crucial aspects that may have major impact on the per capita income of country. The current study is designed to achieve the same purpose. In this study, for research purpose, the data has been collected from ASEAN countries as the study is based on ASEAN countries. This data consists of 27 years. When several tests such as LLC unit root, Kao cointegration, DOLS estimation and Granger casualty test were applied on the data, all the detailed results related to the order of integration, cointegration, variables’ coefficient estimation and casual relationships were obtained. These results were then analyzed and criticized effectively. These results enlightened that FLFP and unemployment have significant impacts on per capita income in ASEAN countries. In the same fashion, the impact of the only control variable, literacy rate was also identified as significant. This study has various theoretical, practical and policy making implications which can be adopted in order to increase per capita income of the country. In the last, various limitations and recommendations for their improvement have been discussed. Future researchers can use these recommendations to broaden their researches and increase the accuracy and strength of the results of their studies