ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon available statistical data to go into great depth to compare the economic performance of Tunisia, with its fellow MENA countries, in both the GCC and other countries, with our sample of six East Asian countries (China, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand). Despite its several areas of considerable strength and success in development, the chapter paints a somewhat mixed picture of Tunisia's performance when it comes to its structural and developmental dynamics. Despite having achieved a high rate of urbanization, we show that Tunisian development exhibited only very limited structural transformation and industrialization, the large fall in its share of agriculture only partially offset by a somewhat stalled rise in its share of manufacturing, and its overall low rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. In the presence of strong demographic pressures, a large youth bulge, and despite rising educational levels, moreover, Tunisia's labor market dynamics remained weak, with low rates of labor force participation, high rates of unemployment, and major skills mismatches. Despite impressive efforts to promote gender equity, only slight improvements in the gender equity in its labor markets were achieved, and the rate of female participation in labor markets remained quite low.
