Drivers of Change: Employment Responses to the Lifting of the Saudi Female Driving Ban

Chaza Abou Daher, Erica Field, Kendal Swanson and Kate Vyborny

American Economic Review, 2025, vol. 115, issue 9, 3248-71

Abstract: We conduct a field experiment to quantify the impact of the lifting of the Saudi women's driving ban on women's employment by randomizing rationed spaces in driver's training. Treated women are 41 percent more likely to be employed yet are 19 percent less likely to be able to make purchases without family permission. Patterns of heterogeneous treatment effects reveal that these divergent impacts of access to driving are experienced by distinct subgroups of women. The results underscore the importance of intrahousehold responses that can counteract legal gains in women's freedoms.

JEL-codes: C93 D13 J16 J22 K38 O15 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20240119 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E226844V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23802 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23803 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:9:p:3248-71

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240119

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().