Question

1. Female labor force participation (LFP) tends to be markedly lower in the MENA region when compared to other world regions. Some scholars have claimed that this phenomenon can be traced to the traditional culture and/or the dominant religion (i.e., Islam) in the region. Others attribute the outcome to the presence large natural resource rents.
   (a)   What is the theoretical argument why natural resource rents may reduce female LFP? Who has present empirical evidence in favor of this hypothesis?
   (b)   Some scholars have argued that rather reducing female LFP, natural resource rents may actually be associated with higher female LFP rates. What are the theoretical arguments and the empirical evidence in favor of this hypothesis?
2. There are many studies that suggest an association between low female LFP some religious affiliations and cultural backgrounds, which may explain the situation in the MENA region. What sort of empirical evidence do these studies produce to support these claims?

Answer 1

A) FLFP also depends upon cultural and Religious background and also depends upon willingness to work as per the individual choices.

As human need some sufficient resources to survive in the world, and if an individual want only this to be happen then it can be an individual choice to depend upon only natural resource rents and not to work as men can work for them and they can run the family and take good care of in house work, but remember this is because of their background of culture and religion.

As it also seen around the globe that women used to work as they want too and doesn't only depend upon rent.

B) Yes, there are many studies which suggest that lower FLFP has a relationship with religious affiliation and cultural background, but on the other side this can not be true for entire world, there are other countries too where FLFP is higher than the average of world FLFP, on the basis of which we may conclude that this is based the choice of the females in a particular part of the world, as they want to work or they want to take care of in house activities as per cultural and religious background.