Abstract

• This study investigates the effects of rural population, urban population, and higher education on employment by gender in Myanmar. It draws upon a panel database of 20 observations collected from CSO, Myanmar and World Bank Indicators (1996 to 2015). The study offers findings on employment by gender in Myanmar. Whenever increase in rural population by one million leads to increase both male and female employments to population ratios. An increase in a thousand number of total enrollments in higher education reduces both male and female employments to population ratios. There is also positive and significant effect of total number of graduates in higher education on both male and female employments to population ratios in Myanmar. However, the total number of graduates in higher education is inversely related to both male and female self-employed in Myanmar. Total number of graduates in higher education is much less than that of enrollments in higher education therefore the percentage share of graduates should be increased to the desire level. There is not too much high gender disparity with respect to employment to population ratio and self-employed in Myanmar. If women are university graduates and post-graduate qualifications, opportunities for women to obtain employment in line with their high qualifications must be ensured.