Do Saudi private firms really prefer hiring Saudi women over Saudi men?
In this article, I use online job postings to test whether there is a preference towards hiring Saudi women amongst companies in jobs that are otherwise suitable for both genders. I explore this question because there is a somewhat common anecdotal perception amongst some Saudis on Twitter that the rapid increase in the Saudi female workforce participation rate from 17.4% in Q1, 2017 to 36% by Q4, 2022, respectively, has coincided with companies replacing Saudi males with Saudi women. This idea is relatively common despite the lack of any empirical evidence showing that Saudi women negatively impact the employment or workforce participation rates for Saudi men.[1]
Graph 1. Quarterly Saudi labor force participation rate by gender 2017-2022[2]
I have argued before that wage subsidy programs such as the Employment Support scheme that pays a higher subsidy amount to employ females compared to men may be fueling this rhetoric.[3] Therefore, I create a monthly indicator that measures the share of jobs that are strictly looking to employ Saudi women by text mining online job descriptions between Feb through April 2023.[4] Specifically, to avoid biasing this indicator, I exclude jobs that require a Saudi female due to the segregated nature of the occupation or social norms such as those in nursing, childcare centers, or teachers in female-only schools. In other words, this indicator only captures jobs that are arguably suitable for both genders yet for unexplained reasons, companies still prefer to hire Saudi women.[5]
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