IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/201241.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Female Labour Force Participation in Arab Countries: The Role of Identity

Author

Listed:
  • Tobias Caris

    (Philipps-University Marburg)

  • Bernd Hayo

    (Philipps-University Marburg)

Abstract

We investigate why female labour market participation is low in the Arab region. Utilising Akerlof and Kranton’s (2000) ‘identity economics’ approach, we show in a simple gametheoretic 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 Arab 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 Arab region, Muslim women do not participate in the labour market less than non-Muslim women, whereas those with strong traditional identities have a 7 percentage point lower probability of entering the labour market.

Suggested Citation

  • 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).
    • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:201241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb02/research-groups/economics/macroeconomics/research/magks-joint-discussion-papers-in-economics/papers/2012-papers/41-2012_hayo.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hendry, David F., 2000. "Econometrics: Alchemy or Science?: Essays in Econometric Methodology," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198293545, Decembrie.
    2. 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.
    3. Psacharopoulos, George & Tzannatos, Zafiris, 1989. "Female Labor Force Participation: An International Perspective," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 4(2), pages 187-201, July.
    4. Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987. "Female labor supply: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204, Elsevier.
    5. Timur Kuran, 1997. "Islam and Underdevelopment: An Old Puzzle Revisited," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 153(1), pages 1-41, March.
    6. Reimers, Cordelia W, 1985. "Cultural Differences in Labor Force Participation among Married Women," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 251-255, May.
    7. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Anzelika Zaiceva & Klaus Zimmermann, 2014. "Children, Kitchen, Church: does ethnicity matter?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 83-103, March.
    5. Eschelbach Martina, 2015. "Family Culture and Fertility Outcomes – Evidence from American Siblings," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(3), pages 246-267, June.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8811 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/8813 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Guner, Duygu & Uysal, Gokce, 2014. "Culture, Religiosity and Female Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 8132, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Younghwan Song, 2007. "The working spouse penalty/premium and married women’s labor supply," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 279-304, September.
    10. Bozzano, Monica, 2017. "On the historical roots of women's empowerment across Italian provinces: religion or family culture?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 24-46.
    11. Cobb-Clark, Deborah & Crossley, Thomas F., 2004. "Revisiting the family investment hypothesis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 373-393, June.
    12. Smolny, Werner & Rieber, Alexander, 2016. "Labour market integration of immigrants - Evidence for the German guest workers," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145629, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8811 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Julia Bredtmann & Sebastian Otten, 2023. "Culture and the labor supply of female immigrants," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(2), pages 282-300, April.
    15. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2007. "Social Attitudes and Economic Development : an Epidemiological Approach," Working Papers hal-01066088, HAL.
    16. Deborah Cobb-Clark & Thomas F Crossley, "undated". "Gender, Comparative Advantage and Labor Market Activity in Immigrant Families," Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers 46, McMaster University.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8813 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bernd Fitzenberger & Reinhold Schnabel & Gaby Wunderlich, 2004. "The gender gap in labor market participation and employment: A cohort analysis for West Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 83-116, February.
    19. Leah Platt Boustan & William J. Collins, 2014. "The Origin and Persistence of Black-White Differences in Women's Labor Force Participation," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital in History: The American Record, pages 205-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Bredtmann, Julia & Otten, Sebastian, 2013. "The Role of Source- and Host-Country Characteristics in Female Immigrant Labor Supply," MPRA Paper 44544, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2005. "Civic attitudes and the Design of Labor Market Institutions? Which Countries can Implement the Danish Flexicurity Model?," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 0517, CEPREMAP.
    22. Hall, Axel & Zoega, Gylfi, 2014. "Values and labor force participation in the Nordic countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-43.
    23. Alfred Dockery, 2010. "Culture and Wellbeing: The Case of Indigenous Australians," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(2), pages 315-332, November.
    24. Raquel Fernandez, 2007. "Women, Work, and Culture," NBER Working Papers 12888, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female labour market participation; Arab region; Islam; Identity; Religion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mar:magkse:201241. 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: Bernd Hayo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.html .

    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.