4 Jamaican female participation rate was more than double the regional average and about 3 standards deviations greater thaal the regional mean. In this respect, one might have expected that, if there were to be a change, the change would have most probably ue a dowriward one. In fact, the rate of male labor force participation in Jamaica also fell from 96 percent in 1962 to 76 percent in '982.8 The changes in both the female and the male participation rates suggest that still women **iln** Jamaica experienced a lesser decline in participation than men. Perhaps, a common factor behind the decline in the participation rates of both women and men in Jamaica has been the significant negative economic growth that the country experienced during the last two-and-a-half decades: per capita GDP fell by as much as 1.3 percent per annum between 1965 and 1989.9 In contrast to the increase in the participation rate of prime-age women in the region, the participation rates of younger and older women have consistently declined since the 1950s. With respect to younger age-groups, the only countries where participation increased were Brazil and Coltombia. This was not unexpected: both countries experienced the highest rate of growth in the participation rate of prime-age women (from almost 19 percent for both countries in the l950s to 33 and 39 percent respectively for Brazil and Colombia in the 1980s). Hence, there must have been some factors in these two countries that were more conducive to an expansion of the overall female labor supply than in other countries in the region. Colombia also shows a rise in the participation rate of older women along with (mild increases) in Peru and Uruguay. However, these mild exceptions do not change the overall picture and, in summary terms, the average participation of young women fell from 13.7 percent to 10.6 percent and that for older women decreased from 11.9 percent to 9.4 percent. The previous remr,ark on the cross-country variance of participation rates in the region that was made for the case of prime-age women holds also in the case of the two other age-groups: the coefficient of variation for both younge, and older women was reduced significantly. Jt was reduced by almost half for young women and by one-quarter for older women. This finding reinforces the view that the countries in the region tend to become more homogeneous with respect to the use of female labor during economic development.

The increase in female participation in the region was somewhat unexpected given the experience of industrialized countries. The latter saw a rise in women's female participation during periods of consistent economic growth and tight labor market conditions.'1 In contrast, the sizeable increase in female participation in Latin kmerica occured in a period of adverste economic conditions. For example, in five of the countries in the region (Argentina, El Salvador, Jamaica, Peru and Venezuela) per capita GDP showed a negative average growth rate

- 8 ILO (1990), Table 1.

- 9 World Bank (1991, Table 1, p. 204).

**1'** See for example Mincer (1962), Cain (1966), Oppenheimer (1974) for the American case; Nakamura, Nakamura and Cullen (1979a) for C(nada; Joshi, Layard and Owen (1985) for Britain. For a survey of the experience of the industrialized countries see Killingsworth (1986).