Missing Women, Integration Costs, and Big Push Policies in the Saudi Labor Market

Conrad Miller, Jennifer Peck and Mehmet Seflek

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 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.

JEL-codes: J16 J23 J71 M51 O15 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1257/app.20200220

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