Psacharopoulos was the Chief Economist and Senior Advisor for the Human Resources Sector of the World Bank. Currently, he teaches economics at the University of Athens in Greece, and is a member of the Greek parliament.
In his lecture at Ewha, Psacharopoulos analyzed the reasons to women"s low participation and wage rate in the labor market. Psacharopoulos differentiated policies needed to enhance women"s status in the labor market of developing and developed countries. Providing more opportunities of education for women in developing nations would benefit women to a significant degree.
However, in developed countries such as the OECD members, education of women have little or no effect on women"s position in the market. People"s conception of the volatility of women"s participation in work due to family reasons make private sectors reluctant to hire them. Psacharopoulos thus advocated institutionalizing child care centers in workplaces.
Furthermore,the basic nature of education where women are concentrated in certain majors prevent them from gaining recognition in fields that are
growing in importance in this IT era.
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"People need to realize that the more women are in work, the higher a country"s per capita income is," he said, as a pathway of becoming a leading nation.
neyessioui@ewha.ac.kr