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Female labour force participation is an indication o f the economically active female
population of a country. Recently, interest of researchers to study female labour force
participation has been widening and most of these studies in the literature have focused
on female participation and factors contributing towards it. Cultural aspects and the
limited access for the female education have been found in many countries as explaining
the low labour force participation of females. Among South Asian countries, Sri Lanka -
has shown remarkable achievements in female education, during past four decades. As
per the human capital theory, education is one of the most im portant human capital
variables that empowers and encourages the people to enter into the labour market.
This view has been confirmed by empirical studies too. However, there is hardly any
study that focuses on education and female labour force participation in the Sri Lankan
context. Hence the present study aims to fill this literature gap by examining the effect
of the education on female labour force participation and exploring key factors that
affect female labour force participation in Sri Lanka. The study analyses both primary
and secondary data to achieve the objective. Descriptive statistics together with the
quantitative tools are used to analyze data.
Results o f the study show that the female education and labour force participation are
not consistent w ith the human capital theory in the context of Sri Lanka. During past
decades, females in Sri Lanka have achieved a remarkable level in terms of education.
Their performance at primary, secondary and tertiary level education is at a higher level
in Sri Lanka. This has resulted in narrowing the gender gap in literacy rate, access for
education as well as the performance in the general education. However, the stagnation
and slow shrinking trend in the female labour force participation confirms that the
education o f the females has not encouraged them to participate in the labour market.
Narrow choices o f females in the education and labor market; labour market structure
including structural rigidities and wage discriminations; m ultiple roles o f females in Sri
Lankan context and availability of child caring facilities are the other key factors that
affect the female labour force participation in Sri Lanka.
