The prevalence of gender discrimination, practices and social norms in Africa has made girls vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, child marriage, child domestic work, sexual abuse, violence and exploitation. This has in turn affected women's participation in the labour force in Africa. In most parts of the continent, due to religious and cultural affiliations, women are made subordinate to their male counterparts, most especially in Sub-Saharan African countries like Nigeria. This paper examines gender employment, unpaid care and domestic work in Africa through in-depth review of scholarly articles. The findings show that the female participation rate in Africa is still low. The low prevalence of women in paid employment in Africa, affected by the high rate of unpaid and domestic services rendered by women, has affected their general participation in the African labour force. Findings have also revealed that household income, education of the girl child, family size, financial conditions of the household, and family background are important factors that determine the participation of females in the labour force. The paper recommends that girl child education needs to be improved in order to facilitate their relevance in skilled paid employment in Africa.
Akinokun et al. (Wed,) studied this question.