Exploring the female youth unemployment effects of globalization in South Africa using the standard ARDL approach

This study investigated the impact of globalization and its sub-dimensions on the female youth unemployment in South Africa for the period 1990–2022, using the standard ARDL approach. The findings show that in the short term, globalization significantly reduces female youth unemployment but only for interpersonal, political and financial types of globalization. The largest gains emanate from the interpersonal component of social globalization, followed by political globalization. Conversely, in the long term, with the exception of financial and cultural globalization, the remaining forms of globalization facilitate female youth unemployment. The economic globalization impact is driven by trade, followed by the informational component of social globalization. Political globalization has the smallest positive effect. While the short run effects from political, interpersonal and financial globalization render support for the Hyperglobalists theory, in the long term, the transformationalist theory is only supported by the financial and cultural globalization, while the skeptic theory is demonstrated in the rest of globalization components. Threshold effects reveal presence of a long run U-shaped curve for the overall globalization index, as well as the social, informational, cultural and political globalization. Policy implications are discussed.