Cohort analysis of labor participation and sectorial composition of employment in Ecuador

Abstract

The study assesses the contribution of cohort, age and business cycle effects to the evolution of labor participation rate and sectoral employment in Ecuador from 2000 to 2019. Being characterized by a large amount of informality, as well as by significant economic and institutional changes, Ecuador could provide new insights to the literature. The empirical analysis reveals that both female and male labor participation rate decreases for the younger generations. The life cycle profiles for sectoral employment show that formal employment rate has an inverted U-shaped form. In contrast, younger workers are found to be more likely to participate in the informal salaried sector, while self-employment notably increases with age. A sustained growth in formal employment rate is observed for the new generations, while the opposite occurs for the informal salaried and self-employment. Finally, the results suggest that female labor participation is strongly countercyclical, which correspond to the added worker effect hypothesis.