Social norms and childcare responsibilities often constrain women's mobility and work. This paper investigates the promise of digitalization in unlocking the growth of home-based businesses, an economic...
Although female labor force participation in the Islamic Republic of Iran is among the lowest in the world, there is a lack of studies on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s female labor...
Despite sizable government interventions to sustain the economy, in the first year of the pandemic (2021/22), approximately 1 million jobs were lost in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and labor force participation...
When reform of gender discriminatory law fails, individual action can offer a second-best solution. As most Muslim-majority countries, Tunisia applies Islamic inheritance law, systematically favoring sons...
To what extent do attitudes and perceived norms around household roles hinder the emergence of more gender-equal distributions of labor in Morocco? Moroccan women undertake a disproportionate share of...
This paper uses the context of the Islamic Republic of Iran-Iraq war in 1980–88 to study the long-term impacts of exposure to the war during school years on educational attainment and labor market outcomes...
Gender norms are often emphasized to help explain gender gaps in the labor market. This paper examines global patterns of gender attitudes and norms toward the stereotypical gender roles of the male breadwinner...
Refugees face important barriers to participation in the formal market, which locks them in informal employment and makes them more vulnerable to shocks. Using data from Jordan, this paper compares the...
Despite the efforts made to increase women’s inclusion in the economy, they are still underrepresented in trade in general and in global value chains in particular. Thus, this paper aims at examining the...
Closing the gender digital divide by ensuring equal access to and benefit of the internet may reduce economic inequalities and close the gender gap in employment by providing new economic opportunities...
Despite substantial progress in closing the gender gap, women’s labor force participation in the Middle East and North Africa remains one of the lowest globally, at a mere 18 percent. This paper investigates...
Innovations to date in detecting women’s employment have focused primarily on improving individual-level questions. This paper explores an alternative approach, using data on household enterprises and...
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on men’s labor market outcomes in the West Bank and Gaza, examining adjustments at the extensive (participation) and intensive (hours of work) margins...
Kuwaiti women working in Kuwait’s civil service earn, on average, 18 percent less than Kuwaiti men. Using a unique data set of all Kuwaiti nationals working in Kuwait’s civil service, this paper analyzes...
This paper studies the early career dynamics of employment and formality using data from the Arab Republic of Egypt. With 14 rounds of Egypt’s labor force surveys several measures of informality and underemployment...
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the Arab Republic of Egypt’s economy and its people in many ways. By combining micro-simulations and imputation techniques, this paper models early impacts of the pandemic...
There is increasing recognition that deficiencies in the public transport system impact men and women differently. While transport systems have been shown to play a significant role in women’s participation...
This paper investigates the marriage market returns to female education by examining the resources transferred from the groom to the bride and her family at the time of marriage, known as the bride price...
This paper presents updated simulation results of the potential effects of COVID-19-related school closures on learning outcomes globally. The simulation, which updates and extends prior work by Azevedo...
The Arab Republic of Egypt’s industries rely heavily on imported goods for production. Thus, an increase in imports could have a potentially positive effect on the labor market as it means more inputs...