Tourism development and women employment: A study on the European union countries

Abstract

The intergovernmental institutions recommend tourism development as a policy goal for reducing gender inequality through employment channels. However, such approaches ignore the indirect and induced effects of tourism sector development on women’s employment through male dominated forward and backward linkages. Adverse spillover effects of tourism-related sectors limit the impact of tourism on generating women’s employment. With this goal in mind, the study estimates the spillover effect of tourism sector development on the gender gap in selected employment indicators of 27 European Union countries between 2008 and 2019. Results show that development in the tourism sector, measured by the number of tourists per active population, improves the gender gap in labor force participation, employment, and unemployment among EU countries. Considering the precarious working conditions of the tourism sector, results only reflect a limited aspect of women’s empowerment.