The employment multiplier in the European hospitality industry: a gender approach

The purpose of this study was to estimate the capacity of the predominant activity of the Hotel and Restaurant (H&R) sector to create female employment in European Union (EU) countries.

The methodology used was conducted in two stages. First, a branch employment multiplier was calculated using the Leontief input-output tables (IOTs), which show the direct and indirect capacity of the activity to generate female employment. Second, a regression model was estimated to explain the determinants of the female employment multiplier in the H&R sector. It should be noted that the reliability and simplicity of the proposed model allows countries without IOTs, but with gender-disaggregated labor statistics, to easily estimate their own female employment multiplier.

The results show that the job-creation capacity of the H&R sector significantly varies across the EU countries, especially in relation to the female employment multiplier. Although international differences in gender wage gaps help to explain such multipliers, institutional factors and feminization rate also play a key role.

The results may contribute to improving the actions of member states to stimulate the sustainable development of the tourism sector.

Based on previous literature, the finding that higher tourism expenditure may result in increases in tourism employment gives rise to another set of interesting questions. The most fundamental of these may concern the nature of the economic underpinnings of the growth of female employment. This paper contributes to this issue by conducting a specific analysis across EU countries using a homogenous and comparable methodology.