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

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Miller, Conrad; Peck, Jennifer; Seflek, Mehmet
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; Swarthmore College
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20200220
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 51-77
• 关键词: segregation; EMPLOYMENT; CONSEQUENCES; work; sex

摘要

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.