Women in Ethiopian Tax Administration: Evidence on Representation and Performance
Abstract
In the growing body of research on gender and taxation in low-income countries, the
implications of having more women in tax administration have received relatively little
attention. Using data from employee records and key informant interviews, we examine the
representation of women in the workforce of the Ethiopian tax administration, as well as their
performance and their misconduct. The findings show that women dominate the overall
workforce in most branch offices. However, women overwhelmingly occupy lower ranked
positions and their engagement at the top level of management is quite limited. Our analysis
of gender-disaggregated employee performance scores indicates that there is no conclusive
evidence to claim women perform better than men employees, though most of the key
informants tend to believe otherwise. However, misconduct records present a strong case
that women employees are less likely to commit serious disciplinary misconduct, such as
corruption and breaching trust, and more likely to serve for a longer number of years
compared to men employees. We also present cross-country comparisons with Uganda and
other ATAF member countries. Our overall findings underline the significant contributions of
employing more women in tax administration and the need to further empower women
through continued leadership training and mentoring programmes.
Citation
Yimam, S. and Mekonnen, Y. (2023) Women in Ethiopian Tax Administration: Evidence on Representation and Performance, ICTD Working Paper 16, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/ICTD.2023.034DOI
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