ABSTRACT

This study investigates the level of gender inequality in the Nigerian labour market and the extent to which that inequality is explained by the characteristics of men and women in the market. It analyses the 2008/2009 Harmonised Survey, drawing mainly on its labour and employment component. Within a Mincer-type wage equation framework, the study estimates ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions at different levels of education. A Heckman two-step sample selection model controls for the selection bias that arises from sample truncation in the wage equation. An Oaxaca-type decomposition is then used to explain gender earnings gaps at different levels of education. The results show a large gender earnings gap to the disadvantage of women in the Nigerian labour market, and the gap narrows as the level of education rises. The study also finds that endowments, that is, the observed characteristics of men and women, significantly reduce the gap. Among other recommendations, the study urges government to help girls obtain higher educational qualifications by supporting them beyond primary and secondary education, and to encourage women to take part in non-wage labour market activities, since many of these offer higher earnings potential.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Gender discrimination has become a contemporary issue in national and international debate, in developed and developing countries alike. It has drawn the attention of researchers, academics, public analysts and society at large. Economists and labour leaders are increasingly concerned that discrimination in the workplace violates human rights and harms human ability, welfare, economic growth and productivity. Labour market studies have also shown that discrimination generates other socio-economic inequalities, which undermine social cohesion and working relationships and slow the reduction of poverty. Income inequality in Nigeria has been reported to have worsened from about 0.43 to about 0.49 on the Gini scale between 1985 and 2008, which placed Nigeria among the most unequal countries in the world despite its vast resources.

Education is an area where inequality is especially clear. In developing countries, persistent gender inequality holds back both education and economic growth. Research on gender stratification shows that discrimination against women in education is not only unacceptable on humanitarian grounds but also a major obstacle to economic development, and expanded access to education is regarded as the route to gender parity and to economic progress. Yet limited access to education for girls persists in Nigeria and many other developing countries, and it remains a major concern for policymakers and the international community. The United Nations treats the right to education as a fundamental human right from which everyone, regardless of race, national origin or gender, should have a full opportunity to benefit. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) provides that everyone has the right to education, that education should be free at least at the elementary and fundamental stages, that elementary education should be compulsory, that technical and professional education should be generally available, and that higher education should be equally accessible to all on merit. Many developing countries accepted this right after independence.

Gender pay differences against women and in favour of men have been widely noted in Nigeria, even though equal pay legislation was introduced decades ago, and women remain underrepresented in well-paid and powerful positions. A range of barriers, including reproductive roles, limited access to productive assets and educational disadvantages, together account for much of the observed gender disparity in income. Other income differences can be traced to workplace discrimination in both the private and public sectors. An earlier study found that men earned the equivalent of about N2,300 more per month than women in Nigeria, which widened the income gap by at least US$23 a month, and that men’s mean income rose by 28 percent between 1998 and 2005. Globally, women earn on average 20 to 30 percent less than men. Recent evidence confirms that the problem persists: Orji and Nwosu (2024), analysing household surveys for 2003/2004 and 2018/2019, found a significant gender wage gap in favour of men at every point of the wage distribution, even though the gap narrowed over time, and Moh’d et al. (2025) found that young Nigerian women are 44 percent less likely than men to be employed and earn about 39 percent less.

In Africa, labour force participation rates are strongly gendered. Data compiled around 2007 showed that women were much less likely than men to be economically active in all age groups in nearly every country with data, the exceptions being Burundi, The Gambia and Sierra Leone. On average in the region, the participation rate was 78.3 percent for men and 61.0 percent for women, a gap of 17.3 percentage points, which was wider than in the European Union. Country differences were large, with female participation ranging from below 40 percent in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda to 80 percent or more in Burkina Faso, Burundi, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The low female participation observed in several African countries may reflect women’s traditional involvement in subsistence farming and in agricultural market production. Opportunities for women to take up paid employment have continued to rise in most regions of the world, Nigeria included, and careers once seen as exclusively masculine have seen an influx of women. Even so, women face discrimination, and this study is timely and important for understanding the relationship among education, earnings and gender discrimination in the Nigerian labour market.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Gender inequality in the labour market remains a pressing problem in contemporary Africa. Male and female labour market outcomes vary widely across countries, but in several countries women are less likely to hold well-paid jobs. In Nigeria’s Federal Civil Service, the largest single employer in the country, about 76 percent of civil servants are men and 24 percent are women, and women hold less than 14 percent of management-level positions. In the medical field, 17.5 percent of those engaged are women, against 82.5 percent men. Recent research on the Nigerian civil service reaches similar conclusions about the discrimination women face and its effect on their participation (Sankay et al., 2022). Gender disparities discourage women’s entry into many of these fields and make investing in women’s education for such professions less rewarding. Few women are seen in these fields, which makes it appear that women are not employable on the one hand and that employers do not hire women on the other, as discrimination theory describes. This type of discrimination cannot easily be measured. It becomes an institutional factor that damages women’s economic status by lowering their incentive to stay in school, to take part in training programmes and eventually to remain in the labour market. Other indicators point the same way: men account for about 87 percent of those in the formal sector against 13 percent for women, and the extractive industry, with an annual business volume above US$42 million, has virtually no female involvement.

Another feature of the Nigerian labour market is a high unemployment rate. The 2010 National Manpower Stock and Employment Generation Survey of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put national unemployment at 21.1 percent, up from 19.7 percent in 2009. Between 2006 and 2010 the rate rose from 11.9 percent to 21.1 percent. The survey also showed more unemployed females than males, at 24.9 percent against 17.7 percent. Table 1.1 shows the national unemployment rates.

Table 1.2 gives the unemployment rate by educational attainment in rural and urban areas, and it shows that females are more affected by unemployment at every level of education, although a decline is observed for females at the highest level of education.

When the 2010 data are broken down by age, unemployment was highest among youths aged 15 to 24 years, at an average of 35.9 percent, followed by those aged 25 to 34 years at 23.1 percent and those aged 35 to 44 years at 17.05 percent. Unemployment was also higher among women than among men in every age group.

The Nigerian labour market consists of formal and informal sectors. The informal sector accounts for more than 65 percent of the economy, dominates economic activity and provides most of the employment. Agriculture and related activities employ the largest number of people, 14,837,693, of whom 10,261,705 (69.16 percent) are men and 4,575,988 (30.84 percent) are women. Women hold the greatest share of employment in accommodation and food service activities, about 83 percent, against 17 percent for men. Overall, more females (27,483,577) than males (27,160,099) worked in the informal sector. The formal sector comprises wage or salary employment in the private and public sectors, determined institutionally by government, whereas informal sector wages are largely dictated by market forces. Women lag behind men on most indicators of socio-economic development, form the majority of the poor, the unemployed and the socially disadvantaged, and are the hardest hit by economic shocks, with about 52 percent of rural women living below the poverty line. Table 1.3 shows the distribution of men and women across key economic activities, a pattern that has implications for their earnings.

The sectors extracted from the survey show how women are disadvantaged relative to men. Nigerian economic managers have reported average growth of 6 percent and above, but this growth has coincided with high unemployment, poverty and widespread inequality. Education has expanded significantly in most developing countries, Nigeria included, yet females still lag behind in enrolment and achievement at all levels of schooling. The 2005 target for gender parity in primary and secondary enrolment was missed, and the ability of women and girls to empower themselves economically and socially, through school or through productive and civic activity, remains constrained by their responsibility for everyday household tasks. Recent evidence on female education and employment is consistent with this picture. Oladokun and Alawode (2024) found that education drives women’s engagement in skilled employment, but because most women have only secondary education, they are concentrated in unskilled employment, and they recommended educating girls beyond the secondary level.

Several studies suggest that barriers such as reproductive roles and educational constraints together account for the observed gender disparities in employment. Labour force participation, average numbers in paid employment by sector and average monthly pay by sector have also fluctuated considerably. Debate in Nigeria on wage differentiation and gender discrimination has been limited and inconclusive, although recent work has begun to fill the gap. Orji and Nwosu (2024) decompose the wage gap across the whole distribution, Daudu et al. (2023) examine farm wages, and Moh’d et al. (2025) examine youth employment and earnings. In the wider African context, women’s weekly earnings in the informal sector have been found to be only about 23 percent of men’s in Burkina Faso, 79 percent in Ghana, 45 percent in Mozambique and 51 percent in Nigeria, and such a wage gap, prevalent across Africa, is commonly read as a sign of discrimination against women in the labour market.

Existing work on Nigerian labour markets has concentrated on gender pay, on macroeconomic determinants of labour market outcomes and on gender disparities in income and education. Few studies have used a sample-selection-corrected wage equation to estimate whether there is significant discrimination in employment, and whether there is significant gender bias in earnings, at different levels of education and across the public, private and informal sectors. Hence, this study is geared toward education, earnings and gender discrimination in the Nigerian labour market. To this end, it addresses the research questions and objectives set out below.

1.3 Research Questions

1. What is the level of gender earnings gap in the Nigeria labour market?
2. How much of inequality in the labour market can be explained by observed characteristics of men and women?
3. Does gender earnings gap in the Nigeria labour market depend on the level of education?

1.4 Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are:

1. To estimate the level of gender earnings gap in the Nigeria labour market.
2. To ascertain if the level of inequality in the labour market can be explained by observed characteristics of men and women.
3. To ascertain if gender earnings gap in the Nigerian labour market depends on the level of education.

1.5 Research Hypotheses

The major hypotheses of this study are:

• H₀₁: The level of gender earnings gap in the Nigeria labour market is not huge and significant.
• H₀₂: Observed characteristics of men and women do not significantly explain most of the gender inequality in the labour market.
• H₀₃: The level of gender earnings gap in the labour market does not depend on the level of education at which it is computed.

1.6 Policy Relevance

Gender mainstreaming policies became popular in Nigeria, especially as part of political manifestos, but they have had limited success, and gender imbalance remains an issue. Policymakers have focused mainly on poverty alleviation and access to credit, and they have paid little attention to the gender earnings gap. This may be because policymakers know little about how the labour market works or about the extent of gender imbalance that market outcomes can generate. It is common for policymakers in Nigeria to rely on descriptive statistics compiled from labour force or household survey reports when making gender-related policy. Such statistics are useful, but they cannot guide reformative and transformative policy.

In its transformation agenda, the Government of Nigeria introduced policies to empower women and reduce the deprivation of the girl child and of women. These include the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria (GWIN) programme, the Micro Credit Loans Scheme targeted at women in micro enterprises, the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P), YouWIN and other poverty alleviation measures aimed at empowering both men and women. In the recent past, however, no policy has been aimed at the root causes of inequality in the labour market, where women are believed to be marginalised. The government has appointed a number of women to ministerial and regulatory positions, which is encouraging, but it cannot remove imbalances inherent in the labour market without a transformative approach to gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming can be defined as the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated into all policies at all stages by the actors normally involved in policymaking.

This study will help Nigerians to understand the level of gender discrimination in education, earnings and the workplace, and its findings will inform ongoing gender mainstreaming policy in several ways:

i. Anti-discriminatory policies. The findings should help in designing anti-discriminatory policies on the employment of men and women in well-paying jobs and in sectors that pose less risk for women.

ii. Policies and practices that help disadvantaged women. The research can help to address some of the barriers women face in entering the labour market. Although such barriers are not necessarily policy-based, government can relax them by sensitising the public to the value of letting women enter and participate fully in the labour market, in order to raise total output.

iii. Differences in education between men and women. These differences can lead to unequal choices. The findings will show the importance of education in pursuing gender equality and will encourage policymakers to continue with educational policies that raise the enrolment of girls at all levels. Recent evidence supports this direction: the gender wage gap in Nigeria is reduced by education, and policy should focus on improving human capital among women (Orji & Nwosu, 2024).

iv. Training of women. The deficit in training and education hampers women’s access to the labour market. The research is expected to feed into policy designs that give women adequate training, whether on-the-job or entrepreneurial, so that they are not discriminated against in human capital development, which also has the potential to raise their earnings.

Professionally, the study will help policymakers to know whether gender discrimination in the Nigerian labour market depends on educational attainment. It will also help government, non-governmental organisations and individuals to understand the benefits of non-discrimination against women and to adopt measures that discourage the factors that instigate discrimination against women in Nigeria and elsewhere. Academically, the study will add to the literature on education, earnings and gender discrimination in the Nigerian labour market and will serve as a reference for researchers working on this or related issues.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The study is mainly concerned with education, earnings and gender discrimination in the Nigerian labour market. It targets people in the labour market, that is, people who earn income from different labour market activities. The analysis uses the 2008/2009 Harmonised Survey, which has the advantage of capturing most of the variables needed for the study. The data are cross-sectional and nationally representative, because the survey covered all 36 states of the federation. Details of the data set are given in the methodology chapter.

REFERENCES

Daudu, A. K., Kareem, O. W., Olatinwo, L. K., Shuaib, S. B., & Abdulrahman, A. I. (2023). Does gender wage gap exist among farm workers in Nigeria? Evidence from decomposition-matching analysis. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, 11(1), 115–137. https://doi.org/10.2478/auseb-2023-0006

Moh’d, R. I., et al. (2025). Gendered pathways to employability in developing economy: Evidence from logistic regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of gender differences. Energy, Environment and Economic Studies, 1(2).

Oladokun, Y., & Alawode, O. O. (2024). Female education and employment in Nigeria. Mujer Andina, 2(2), 179–193. https://doi.org/10.36881/ma.v2i2.788

Orji, A., & Nwosu, E. O. (2024). Analysis of gender wage gap and the Nigerian labour market: A new empirical evidence. International Journal of Manpower, 45(5), 926–957. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-11-2022-0549

Sankay, O. J., et al. (2022). Does gender inequality matter in employment? A content- and consistency-based analysis of female labour participation in the Nigerian civil service. African Journal of Gender, Society and Development, 11(2), 79–102.