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Working Papers
Women at Work: A Systematic Diagnostic of Female Saudi Employment Gains in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has witnessed a paradox where high demand for labor did not translate into high labor force participation for Saudi women. Despite possessing higher educational attainment than men, Saudi […]
Saudi Arabia has witnessed a paradox where high demand for labor did not translate into high labor force participation for Saudi women. Despite possessing higher educational attainment than men, Saudi women historically faced lower participation rates, higher unemployment, and concentration in lower-paying sectors. This paper examines the paradoxical surge in Saudi women’s employment during a period of economic weakness following the 2014 oil price shock and 2020 pandemic. The study documents unprecedented employment gains driven primarily by new labor market entrants, particularly women with high school education or less, who diversified beyond traditional education and health sectors into retail, construction, manufacturing, and food services. Through empirical analysis of policy reforms implemented between 2016-2022, the paper identifies three key drivers of Saudi women’s employment gains: the removal of legal and social barriers (including workspace requirements and driving restrictions), wage subsidies during COVID-19, and increases in the Nitaqat de facto minimum wage for Saudi workers. While these gains represent historic progress, the analysis reveals concerning trends, including a widening gender wage gap and questions regarding the sustainability of subsidy-dependent employment growth. The paper highlights the need to balance short-term policy interventions to increase women’s entry into the workforce with long-term diversification efforts that align women’s skills and wage expectations with market demands to ensure sustainable and equitable employment outcomes.
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Journal Articles
A journey through time: the story behind ‘eight decades of changes in occupational tasks, computerization and the gender pay gap’
Industry and Innovation, 31
In this interview article, we embark on a fascinating journey through time alongside the winners of the 2023 DRUID Best Paper Award. DRUID, an annual research conference renowned as the […]
In this interview article, we embark on a fascinating journey through time alongside the winners of the 2023 DRUID Best Paper Award. DRUID, an annual research conference renowned as the hub of cutting-edge research on innovation and the dynamics of structural, institutional, and geographic change, bestows this award on the most innovative and exceptional conference submission. As longstanding allies of DRUID, Industry and Innovation offers an exclusive peek behind the curtains, unveiling the untold stories that underlie award-winning research.
In 2023, this coveted DRUID prize was awarded to a paper by Ljubica Nedelkoska, Shreyas Gadgin Matha, James McNerney, Andre Assumpcao, Dario Diodato, and Frank Neffke. Their work stands out through an impressive data collection effort and the exploration of a compelling and urgent research question – how technological change has impacted the gender pay gap. Throughout this interview, the author team takes us down memory lane, retelling the story behind their research project. On this journey through time, we trace the genesis of the authors’ innovative ideas and the intricate pathways they navigated in their quest to understand the past as a means of unravelling the future of work and its implications for gender inequality in the labour market. This journey not only takes us back in time but also points to potential avenues for future research and open questions that lie ahead.
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Working Papers
Women Seeking Jobs with Limited Information: Evidence from Iraq
Do women apply more for jobs when they know the hiring probability of female job seekers directly from employers? I implemented a randomized control trial and a double-incentivized resume rating […]Do women apply more for jobs when they know the hiring probability of female job seekers directly from employers? I implemented a randomized control trial and a double-incentivized resume rating to elicit the preferences of employers and job seekers for candidates and vacancies in Iraq. The treatment reveals the job offer rate for women, calculated using the employers’ selection of women divided by the total number of female candidates. After revealing the treatment, the women applied for jobs by three more percentage points than the men in the control group. This paper highlights the value of revealing employers’ preferences to improve the match between female candidates and employers when women underestimate the chances of finding a job.
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Working Papers
Eight Decades of Changes in Occupational Tasks, Computerization and the Gender Pay Gap
New research from Ljubica Nedelkoska, Shreyas Gadgin Matha, and others finds that computerization had two counteracting effects on the pay gap – it simultaneously reduced it by attracting more women into better-paying occupations, and increased it through higher returns to computer use among men.
We build a new longitudinal dataset of job tasks and technologies by transforming the U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT, 1939 -1991) and four books documenting occupational use of tools and technologies in the 1940s, into a database akin to, and comparable with its digital successor, the O*NET (1998 -today). After creating a single occupational classification stretching between 1939 and 2019, we connect all DOT waves and the decennial O*NET databases into a single dataset, and we connect these with the U.S. Decennial Census data at the level of 585 occupational groups. We use the new dataset to study how technology changed the gender pay gap in the United States since the 1940s. We find that computerization had two counteracting effects on the pay gap -it simultaneously reduced it by attracting more women into better-paying occupations, and increased it through higher returns to computer use among men. The first effect closed the pay gap by 3.3 pp, but the second increased it by 5.8 pp, leading to a net widening of the pay gap. -
Working Papers
Gender Differences in Professional Career Dynamics: New Evidence from a Global Law Firm
We examine gender gaps in career dynamics in the legal sector using rich panel data from one of the largest global law firms in the world. The law firm studied […]We examine gender gaps in career dynamics in the legal sector using rich panel data from one of the largest global law firms in the world. The law firm studied is representative of multinational law firms and operates in 23 countries. The sample includes countries at different stages of development. We document the cross-country variation in gender gaps and how these gaps have changed over time. We show that while there is gender parity at the entry level in most countries by the end of the period examined, there are persistent raw gender gaps at the top of the organization across all countries. We observe significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of gender gaps in promotions and wages, but the gaps that exist appear to be declining over the period studied. We also observe that women are more likely to report exiting the firm for family and work-life balance reasons, while men report leaving for career advancement. Finally, we show that various measures of national institutions and culture appear to play a role in the differential labor-market outcomes of men and women.
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Reports
The Dynamics of the Gender Gap: How do Countries rank in terms of making Marriage and Motherhood compatible with Work?
The Global Gender Gap Report 2009
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Journal Articles
Closing the gender gap in education: What is the state of gaps in labour force participation for women, wives and mothers?
International Labor Review, 153, 173-207.
The educational gender gap has closed or reversed in many countries. But what of gendered labour market inequalities? Using micro‐level census data for some 40 countries, the authors examine the […]The educational gender gap has closed or reversed in many countries. But what of gendered labour market inequalities? Using micro‐level census data for some 40 countries, the authors examine the labour force participation gap between men and women, the “marriage gap” between married and single women’s participation, and the “motherhood gap” between mothers’ and non‐mothers’ participation. They find significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of the size of these gaps, the speed at which they are changing, and the relationships between them and the educational gap. But counterfactual regression analysis shows that the labour force participation gap remains largely unexplained by the other gaps.
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Journal Articles
Closing the gender gap in education: What is the state of gaps in labour force participation for women, wives and mothers?
International Labor Review, 153, 173-207.
The educational gender gap has closed or reversed in many countries. But what of gendered labour market inequalities? Using micro‐level census data for some 40 countries, the authors examine the […]The educational gender gap has closed or reversed in many countries. But what of gendered labour market inequalities? Using micro‐level census data for some 40 countries, the authors examine the labour force participation gap between men and women, the “marriage gap” between married and single women’s participation, and the “motherhood gap” between mothers’ and non‐mothers’ participation. They find significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of the size of these gaps, the speed at which they are changing, and the relationships between them and the educational gap. But counterfactual regression analysis shows that the labour force participation gap remains largely unexplained by the other gaps.
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Working Papers
Career dynamics and gender gaps among employees in the microfinance sector
While microfinance institutions (MFIs) are increasingly important as employers in the developing world, there is little micro-level evidence on gender differences among MFI employees and MFIs’ relation to economic development. […]While microfinance institutions (MFIs) are increasingly important as employers in the developing world, there is little micro-level evidence on gender differences among MFI employees and MFIs’ relation to economic development.
We use a unique panel dataset of employees from Latin America’s largest MFI to show that gender gaps favouring men for promotion exist primarily in the sales division, while there is a significant gender wage gap in the administrative division. Among loan officers in the sales division, the gender gap in promotion and wages reverses.
Finally, female employees tend to work with clients with better loan terms and a history of loans with the institution.
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Book Chapter
Career Dynamics and Gender Gaps among Employees in the Microfinance Sector
Towards Gender Equity and Development
