International Labour Review | 2026
Authors: Metinsoy S.
DOI: 10.16995/ilr.23793
Journal: International Labour Review
Year: 2026
Publisher: Open Library of Humanities
Document Type: Article
Open Access: All Open Access; Gold Open Access; Green Open Access
Cited by: 0
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) claims that its labour market reform facilitates the entry of women into the labour force and improves their employment prospects. In this article, I use an instrumental variable analysis of a sample of 109 countries between the years 1990 and 2014 to show that IMF-sponsored labour market reforms reduce female labour force participation, primarily by lowering wages and thus diminishing incentives for women to work. Lower firing costs, conversely, support women’s entry into the labour force in the short term, with unclear long-term implications. These findings have important implications for global efforts aimed at gender equality. © The author(s) 2026. Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2026.
female labour force participation; Gender; global governance; International Monetary Fund; labour market conditionality; women’s labour force participation