Gender differences and productivity issues are among the key challenges facing most developing nations. This has stimulated a lot of researchers’ interest towards avenues to address these challenges. This study examined the relationship between trade openness and female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in Nigeria. It adopted the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound estimation technique using data from World Development Indicators (WDI) and found that trade openness (TO), primary school education enrolment for female (PEEF), secondary school education enrolment for female (SEEF) and total fertility rate (TFR) have long-run positive impact on female labour force participation rate (FLFPR), while women with HIV has a negative impact on FLFPR. Trade openness, total fertility rate and women with unhealthy status have a short run negative impact on FLFPR, while female primary and secondary school education have short run positive impact on FLFPR. It was recommended that trade openness should be enhanced in Nigeria so as to enable women participate more in economic activities; government expenditure must be efficient enough to provide all social needs that will encourage schooling among Nigerian female and all citizens at large.

Key words: bounds test, gender, informal sector, labour force, unpaid labour

JEL: C32, F16, J21