Shigeyuki Abe: This paper starts with a concise and yet comprehensive survey of literature on female labor participation and the authors make their position of the analysis clear. Their contribution is to shed light on the role of ICT and offshoring as determinants of female labor demand by estimating a system of labor demands, controlling for the effects of skill-biased technological change and offshoring simultaneously.
To the extent that the authors use the data set of ICT capital deepening and labor education level as quality of labor, their modeling endeavor is successful. Their most interesting finding is that the ICT capital stock has significantly negative effects on the demand for middle-low-skilled female workers, whereas it has significantly positive effects on the demand for low-, middle-high-, and high-skilled female workers. The use of ICT such as computers and other high-tech equipment can increase the demand for female workers in general. This...