Firms and Female Employment: Evidence from Saudi Arabia

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 6. Occupational Segregation by Gender

Abstract

Little is understood about the macro-level effects of cultural shifts towards hiring females into top management and its effects on worker retention and firm productivity. While previous studies have looked within firms for cases of cultural change, this is the first study to see the effects of firm-level changes towards female hiring and employment on the entire private sector economy. I analyze the universe of employer-employee matched data (over 21 million employees and 500,000 firms) from the Saudi private sector from 2009-2016 to document important patterns in the data. I find that firms that hire a female manager increase female employment and retention relative to firms which do not hire a female manager. Using qualitative data from interviews and surveys with over 80 Managers and Business Executives, and over 800 potential job seekers, I discuss mechanisms by which increasing presence of female managers and workers has positive spillovers to the firm’s productivity by signaling cultural norms to other firms and potential employees.

Author

• Alessandra L. Gonzalez, University of Chicago