Misperceived Social Norms: Women Working Outside the Home in Saudi Arabia

Out­line

Cus­tom in Sau­di Ara­bia holds that male guardians, such as hus­bands and fa­thers, play a key role in de­cid­ing whether women may work out­side the home – a so­cial norm that helps to ex­plain the coun­try’s low rates of fe­male em­ploy­ment. This project re­ports ev­i­dence that most Sau­di men pri­vate­ly be­lieve that women should be al­lowed to work, but that they also un­der­es­ti­mate the ex­tent to which oth­er men share their views. Ex­per­i­ments re­veal that when men are in­formed that oth­er men agree about women and work, they are more open to the idea of let­ting their wives take a job. Wives of men whose mis­per­cep­tions about the ac­cept­abil­i­ty of fe­male em­ploy­ment have been cor­rect­ed are more like­ly to ap­ply and be in­ter­viewed for a job.

Be­liefs of young mar­ried men in Sau­di Ara­bia

In this project, we com­bine ex­per­i­ments and sur­veys to first pro­vide in­cen­tivized ev­i­dence that the ma­jor­i­ty of mar­ried men in Sau­di Ara­bia in fact sup­port fe­male la­bor force par­tic­i­pa­tion out­side of home, while they sub­stan­tial­ly un­der­es­ti­mate the lev­el of sup­port for fe­male la­bor force par­tic­i­pa­tion by oth­er men – even those from their same so­cial set­ting, such as neigh­bors. We then show that ran­dom­ly cor­rect­ing these be­liefs about oth­ers in­creas­es mar­ried men’s will­ing­ness to let their wives join the la­bor force (as mea­sured by their cost­ly sign-up for a mo­bile job-match­ing ser­vice for their wives). Fi­nal­ly, we find that this de­ci­sion maps onto real out­comes: three to five months af­ter the main in­ter­ven­tion, the wives of men in our orig­i­nal sam­ple whose be­liefs about ac­cept­abil­i­ty of fe­male la­bor force par­tic­i­pa­tion were cor­rect­ed are more like­ly to have ap­plied and in­ter­viewed for a job out­side of home.

Re­search Team

Author

David Yanagizawa-Drott

Professor of Development and Emerging Markets

Zurich ZCED

Alessan­dra Gon­za­lez

Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go

Leonar­do Bursz­tyn

Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go