What does this research mean for the field?

Female employment in Ecuador experienced a sustained negative divergence from its expected trajectory following the 2015 labor reform, though concurrent economic shocks prevent definitive causal attribution to the policy. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine whether Ecuador's female employment-to-population ratio changed significantly after the enactment of the 2015 Organic Law for Labor Justice and Recognition of Domestic Work.

September 15, 2026WorldOpen Access

Female Employment in Ecuador After the 2015 Labor Reform: A Synthetic Control Analysis

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Authors

MFMarco Faytong‐Haro MBMildred Yamel Bitar-Hernandez EAEstefano Andrade-Plaza

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Overview

Synthetic control analysis observes a sustained post-2015 decline in female employment in Ecuador, suggesting confounding by simultaneous macroeconomic shocks rather than direct legislative harm.

Key Points

To determine whether Ecuador's female employment-to-population ratio changed significantly after the enactment of the 2015 Organic Law for Labor Justice and Recognition of Domestic Work.
Applied the synthetic control method to annual country-level data from 1991 to 2023, comparing Ecuador to a weighted counterfactual constructed from eight Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Evaluated result credibility through in-time and in-space placebo assignments, post-to-pre mean squared prediction error (MSPE) ratios, expanded donor pool tests, and leave-one-out sensitivity checks.
Female employment fell below the synthetic counterfactual immediately following the reform, exhibiting a gap of approximately −3.0 percentage points in 2015 and reaching a peak annual deficit of −10.9 percentage points.
Ecuador recorded the highest post-to-pre MSPE ratio of approximately 26 across all comparison units, yielding a rank p-value of 1/9 (p=0.111) that did not reach conventional significance levels.
Confounding macroeconomic shocks—principally the 2015–2016 oil price collapse, economic contraction, and the COVID-19 pandemic—preclude establishing a direct causal link between the reform and employment declines.

Cite This Study

Faytong‐Haro et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aa913c79013453be30a1e9d https://doi.org/10.3390/world7090159

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September 15, 2026WorldOpen Access

Female Employment in Ecuador After the 2015 Labor Reform: A Synthetic Control Analysis

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Authors

MFMarco Faytong‐Haro MBMildred Yamel Bitar-Hernandez EAEstefano Andrade-Plaza

Discussion

Member takes

Overview

Synthetic control analysis observes a sustained post-2015 decline in female employment in Ecuador, suggesting confounding by simultaneous macroeconomic shocks rather than direct legislative harm.

Key Points

To determine whether Ecuador's female employment-to-population ratio changed significantly after the enactment of the 2015 Organic Law for Labor Justice and Recognition of Domestic Work.
Applied the synthetic control method to annual country-level data from 1991 to 2023, comparing Ecuador to a weighted counterfactual constructed from eight Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Evaluated result credibility through in-time and in-space placebo assignments, post-to-pre mean squared prediction error (MSPE) ratios, expanded donor pool tests, and leave-one-out sensitivity checks.
Female employment fell below the synthetic counterfactual immediately following the reform, exhibiting a gap of approximately −3.0 percentage points in 2015 and reaching a peak annual deficit of −10.9 percentage points.
Ecuador recorded the highest post-to-pre MSPE ratio of approximately 26 across all comparison units, yielding a rank p-value of 1/9 (p=0.111) that did not reach conventional significance levels.
Confounding macroeconomic shocks—principally the 2015–2016 oil price collapse, economic contraction, and the COVID-19 pandemic—preclude establishing a direct causal link between the reform and employment declines.

Cite This Study

Faytong‐Haro et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aa913c79013453be30a1e9d https://doi.org/10.3390/world7090159

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark