American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
Missing Women, Integration Costs, and Big Push Policies in the Saudi Labor Market
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 14,
no. 2, April 2022
(pp. 51–77)
Abstract
In settings where social norms promote gender segregation, firms may find it costly to employ both men and women. These integration costs may hinder women's employment. We develop a methodology to test for the presence of fixed integration costs and estimate counterfactual women's employment at all-male firms where these costs bind. We apply our approach in Saudi Arabia and find that integration costs bind for the majority of firms. We show that Nitaqat, a gender-neutral quota program that incentivized the hiring of Saudi nationals at private sector firms, induced firms to integrate and dramatically increased Saudi women's employment.Citation
Miller, Conrad, Jennifer Peck, and Mehmet Seflek. 2022. "Missing Women, Integration Costs, and Big Push Policies in the Saudi Labor Market." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14 (2): 51–77. DOI: 10.1257/app.20200220Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J23 Labor Demand
- J71 Labor Discrimination
- M51 Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
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