IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rmeecf/v9y2013i3p271-292n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Female Labour Force Participation in the MENA Region: The Role of Identity

Author

Listed:
  • Hayo Bernd
  • Caris Tobias

    (Philipps-University Marburg, Universitaetsstr. 24, 35037 Marburg, Germany)

Abstract

We investigate why female labour market participation is low in the MENA region. Utilising Akerlof and Kranton’s (2000) “identity economics” approach, we show in a simple game-theoretic framework that women socialised in a traditional family environment violate their identities by taking a job. In the empirical analysis, we study the respective impact of two determinants of identity in the MENA region, Islam and cultural tradition. Employing two waves of the World Values Survey, we find significant evidence that identity affects female labour market participation. Moreover, our estimates suggest that in the MENA region, Muslim women do not participate in the labour market less than non-Muslim women, whereas those with strong traditional identities have a 5 percentage point lower probability of entering the labour market.

Suggested Citation

  • Hayo Bernd & Caris Tobias, 2013. "Female Labour Force Participation in the MENA Region: The Role of Identity," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 271-292, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rmeecf:v:9:y:2013:i:3:p:271-292:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/rmeef-2013-0021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/rmeef-2013-0021
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/rmeef-2013-0021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greene,William H. & Hensher,David A., 2010. "Modeling Ordered Choices," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521142373.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, July.
    3. Hendry, David F., 2000. "Econometrics: Alchemy or Science?: Essays in Econometric Methodology," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198293545.
    4. Ali Fakih & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2013. "Female Labour Force Participation in MENA's Manufacturing Sector: The Implications of Firm-related and National Factors," CIRANO Working Papers 2013s-46, CIRANO.
    5. Heineck, Guido, 2004. "Does religion influence the labor supply of married women in Germany?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 307-328, July.
    6. Greene,William H. & Hensher,David A., 2010. "Modeling Ordered Choices," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521194204.
    7. Aysit Tansel, 2001. "Economic Development and Female Labor Force Participation in Turkey: Time-Series Evidence and Cross-Province Estimates," Working Papers 0124, Economic Research Forum, revised 08 2001.
    8. Ali Fakih & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2013. "Female Labour Force Participation in MENA's Manufacturing Sector: The Implications of Firm-related and National Factors," CIRANO Working Papers 2013s-46, CIRANO.
    9. Witte Mark David, 2011. "Female Labor, Western Culture and Growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 20-31, May.
    10. Antecol, Heather, 2000. "An examination of cross-country differences in the gender gap in labor force participation rates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 409-426, July.
    11. John Mullahy, 2011. "Marginal Effects in Multivariate Probit and Kindred Discrete and Count Outcome Models, with Applications in Health Economics," NBER Working Papers 17588, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Akerlof George A & Kranton Rachel, 2010. "Identity Economics," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-3, June.
    13. Nadereh Chamlou & Silvia Muzi & Hanane Ahmed, 2011. "Understanding the Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in the Middle East and North Africa Region: The Role of Education and Social Norms in Amman," Working Papers 31, AlmaLaurea Inter-University Consortium.
    14. Mullahy, John, 2011. "Marginal Effects in Multivariate Probit and Kindred Discrete and Count Outcome Models," Working Papers 201135, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moundir Lassassi & Aysit Tansel, 2022. "Female labor force participation in Egypt and Palestine: An age–period–cohort analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 1997-2020, November.
    2. Ishac Diwan & Irina Vartanova, 2017. "The Effect of Patriarchal Culture on Women’s Labor Force Participation," Working Papers 1101, Economic Research Forum, revised 06 Jan 2017.
    3. World Bank Group, 2015. "Morocco - Mind the Gap," World Bank Publications - Reports 24004, The World Bank Group.
    4. Fischer, Justina A.V. & Pastore, Francesco, 2015. "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Religion and Female Employment over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 9244, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ragui Assaad & Rana Hendy & Moundir Lassassi & Shaimaa Yassin, 2020. "Explaining the MENA paradox: Rising educational attainment yet stagnant female labor force participation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(28), pages 817-850.
    6. Peter Haan & Martin Kroh & Kent Troutman, 2017. "Employment and Human Capital Investment Intentions among Recent Refugees in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 937, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    7. Ali Fakih & Pascal Ghazalian, 2015. "Female employment in MENA’s manufacturing sector: the implications of firm-related and national factors," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 37-69, February.
    8. Ahmed, Tanima & Sen, Binayak, 2018. "Conservative outlook, gender norms and female wellbeing: Evidence from rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 41-58.
    9. Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys & Devoto, Florencia & Morales, Matias & Roche Rodriguez, Jaime Alfonso, 2021. "Trends and Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in Morocco: An Initial Exploratory Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 14218, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Mahdi Majbouri & Sanaz Fesharaki, 2019. "Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 831-859, October.
    11. Fischer, Justina AV & Aydıner-Avşar, Nursel, 2015. "Are women in the MENA region really that different from women in Europe? Globalization, conservative values and female labor market participation," MPRA Paper 63800, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2022. "The effects of the Arab Spring on female labour force participation in the MENA region," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 869-900, October.
    13. Eman Abdelhadi & Paula England, 2018. "Do Values Explain the Low Employment Levels of Muslim Women Around the World? A Within-and between-Country Analysis," Working Papers 20180015, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Mar 2018.
    14. Burak Sencer Atasoy, 2017. "Female Labour Force Participation in Turkey: The Role of Traditionalism," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(4), pages 675-706, August.
    15. Corekcioglu, Gozde, 2021. "Unveiling the effects of a headscarf ban: Evidence from municipal jobs in Turkey," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 382-404.
    16. Peter Haan & Martin Kroh & Kent Troutman, 2017. "Employment and Human Capital Investment Intentions among Recent Refugees in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1692, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Ioannis Petrakis, 2021. "Determinants of female labour force participation: Evidence from Greece," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(4), pages 538-567, December.
    18. Hanan Nazier & Racha Ramadan, 2016. "Women's Participation in Labor Market in Egypt: Constraints and Opportunities," Working Papers 999, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hanan Nazier & Racha Ramadan, 2016. "Women's Participation in Labor Market in Egypt: Constraints and Opportunities," Working Papers 999, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.
    2. Guner, Duygu & Uysal, Gokce, 2014. "Culture, Religiosity and Female Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 8132, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Tobias Caris & Bernd Hayo, 2012. "Female Labour Force Participation in Arab Countries: The Role of Identity," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201241, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    4. Mara José Montenegro Guerra & Sandeep Mohapatra & Brent Swallow, 2019. "What influence do empowered women have? Land and the reality of women’s relative power in Peru," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1225-1255, December.
    5. Burak Sencer Atasoy, 2017. "Female Labour Force Participation in Turkey: The Role of Traditionalism," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(4), pages 675-706, August.
    6. An, Wookhyun & Alarcón, Silverio, 2021. "Rural tourism preferences in Spain: Best-worst choices," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Stefan Boes, 2013. "Nonparametric analysis of treatment effects in ordered response models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 81-109, February.
    8. William H. Greene & Mark N. Harris & Rachel J. Knott & Nigel Rice, 2021. "Specification and testing of hierarchical ordered response models with anchoring vignettes," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(1), pages 31-64, January.
    9. Hanna Dudek & Joanna Landmesser, 2012. "Income satisfaction and relative deprivation," Statistics in Transition new series, Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Polska), vol. 13(2), pages 321-334, June.
    10. Das, Ujjwal & Das, Kalyan, 2018. "Inference on zero inflated ordinal models with semiparametric link," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 104-115.
    11. Andrew Powell & Pilar Tavella, 2012. "Capital Inflow Surges in Emerging Economies: How Worried Should LAC Be?," Research Department Publications 4782, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Kaili Wang & Sanjana Hossain & Khandker Nurul Habib, 2022. "A hybrid data fusion methodology for household travel surveys to reduce proxy biases and under-representation of specific sub-group of population," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(6), pages 1801-1836, December.
    13. Ghimire, Ramesh & Green, Gary T. & Paudel, Krishna P. & Poudyal, Neelam C. & Cordell, H. Ken, 2017. "Visitors' Preferences for Freshwater Amenity Characteristics: Implications from the U.S. Household Survey," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 1-24, January.
    14. Chappell, Henry W. & McGregor, Rob Roy, 2018. "Committee decision-making at Sweden's Riksbank," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 120-133.
    15. Fu, Shengfei & Florkowski, Wojciech J., 2016. "Changing Dairy Consumption in an Emerging Economy: An Application of a Multivariate Two-part Model," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235625, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Päivi Karhunen & Svetlana Ledyaeva, 2021. "Is Chain Affiliation a Strategic Asset or Constraint in Emerging Economies? Competitive Strategies and Performance in the Russian Hotel Industry," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 403-427, June.
    17. Charlie Tchinda & Marcus Dejardin, 2021. "Are Business Policy Measures in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic to Be Equally Valued? An Exploration According to SMEs Owners’ Business Expectations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-42, October.
    18. Ali Ardeshiri & Spring Sampson & Joffre Swait, 2019. "Seasonality Effects on Consumers Preferences Over Quality Attributes of Different Beef Products," Papers 1902.02419, arXiv.org.
    19. Patricia Cubí‐Mollá & Mireia Jofre‐Bonet & Victoria Serra‐Sastre, 2017. "Adaptation to health states: Sick yet better off?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1826-1843, December.
    20. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour & Festus Ebo Turkson, 2015. "Selection into Employment Sectors in Urban Ghana and Tanzania: The Role of Education," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 6(4), pages 78-92, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:rmeecf:v:9:y:2013:i:3:p:271-292:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.