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revenues and religion causing gender inequality in Muslim majority Petro states. The literature review provides a theoretical platform supported by quantitative and qualitative researches of how particular variables affecting gender inequality index.
1.4.1 Oil and Gender Inequality
The discovery of precious mineral resources across the underdeveloped regions brought hopes for many people living under the line of poverty; but there are long-standing fears that resources will be a curse rather than a blessing.13 The sceptics predict that discovery of natural resources; especially oil will affect negatively gender equality across the region. As oil´s dependency will cause local economy to fluctuate according to global oil prices;
therefore, the lack of economic diversification will have a negative impact on the whole society and economy of the country, indirectly influencing women´s position in the society.14
On the other hand, empirical case studies in oil booming countries suggest that oil revenues are mostly followed by rapid investments into economy having positive effect on socio-economy, indirectly influencing status of women as well.15 Sachs and Warner are claiming that some oil abundant petro-state countries can have high or low economic growth rates and low level investments based on fact of management of resources.16 The cases of many corrupted countries with low rule of law enforcement are still suffering even after oil boom. Moreover, the oil revenues are not the only one variable which has to be taken into
13 Andreas Kotsadam and Anja Tolonen, “African Mining, Gender, and local employment,” World Development Vol. 83, (New York – 2016) p. 325–339
14 Andreas Kotsadam and Anja Tolonen, “African Mining, Gender, and local employment”
15 Hassana Khalid and Azrai Abdullah, “Effect of Oil Revenue and the Sudan Economy: Econometric Model for Services Sector GDP,” Global Conference on Business & Social Science, (published: Elsevier, 2015), p.15-16 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281500395X
16 Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Wamer, “Fundamental Sources of Long-run Growth,” Amer. Econ. Rev, (1997), p.
184–188.
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consideration. Recent economic growth points on the fact that half of the world’s population nearly every decade has doubled its income.
Observations of empirical cases indicate that countries with the highest economic growth have relatively few natural resources, but on the other hand, they posses with relatively a lot of people feeding the economic booms.17 In recent decades, countries richly endowed with valuable resources have had a worsen their economic development than countries lacking valuable resources; indirectly impacting women´s status in the society as Dutch disease is moving job opportunities away from women in countries rich on resources.18 There are also couple of successful examples in which resource course was overcome, as for instance in case of Norway, where oil revenues brought expected socio-economic improvements together with lowering gender gaps.
The existence of vast majority of literature reveals the findings, why Norway does not suffer from Dutch disease. Since exploitation of Norway´s oil reserves is going side by side connected with overall economic growth rate. This case points out that there are winners and losers within natural resource abundant countries, because of the different dimensions between them. It is vital for this thesis to have a discussion why different oil abundant countries and their different dimensions can lead to positive or negative socioeconomics developments. However, Norway, Botswana, Malaysia and countries of MENA are diametrically different; therefore it is difficult to measure significance of every variable mitigating negative consequences of oil income, impacting women´s status.
We are still lacking sufficient knowledge along which dimensions the resource-abundant countries differ from each other, having different effect on the economy and indirectly influencing status of women inside of petro states. However, Muslim majority petro
17 Ragnar Torvik, “Why do some resource-abundant countries succeed while others do not?” (Oxford University Press, 2009), Available at: http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/Ragnar.Torvik/OXREP.pdf
18 Ibid.
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states is very specific group of countries providing great example where we can control religion, giving us group of countries which are culturally and traditionally influenced by Islamic religion. In that case, this thesis can focus on other variables which are mitigating negative consequences of oil and Islam on women´s status to unveil differences within majority Muslim petro states, respectively between MENA and countries outside of this region.
Labour as a vital variable for economic growth of every country might be extended by giving women opportunity to work, and to join socio-economic life outside of the household.
As the academics of development studies point on the importance of women to join workfare, because “the failure of women to join the non-agricultural labor force has profound social consequences: it leads to higher fertility rates, less education for girls, and less female influence within the family. It also has far-reaching political consequences: when fewer women work outside the home, they are less likely to exchange information and overcome collective action problems; less likely to mobilize politically, and to lobby for expanded rights; and less likely to gain representation in government.”19
This vicious cycle is keeping the status of women low with strong patriarchal supremacy. One of the leading researchers and academics in the field of oil curse in the Middle East – Michael L. Ross claims that the extraordinary export of the crude oil is overvaluing domestic currencies in the MENA region, driving massive imports, and killing local exporting manufacturers, consequently leaving women subordinate in the society.20
Ross argues that oil is keeping women stuck inside a vicious cycle of poverty and under educated, impacting their position in the household and society. “According Gary
19 Thomas L. Friedman, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America,” (New York: Picador, 2009), p.136
20 Micheal L. Ross, “Oil, Islam, and Women,” American Political Science Review 102, (New York: February 2, 2008)
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their wealth, level of education, and the example set by their parents. Both men and women were more likely to hold equitable views on gender if their mothers had more education and fathers were more involved in domestic tasks.”21 The variables as education level and wealth of particular household also vary on countries political and economic development level.Therefore, the quantitative research will deal with various variables in order to analyze their impact on status of women in Muslim majority petro countries.
Academics realize that gender equality and the emancipation of women as important factors for the economic, social, and democratic progress of the world’s regions and for the development of human society, adding on to the importance to this research. Ross believes that oil industries are undermining traditional manufacturing sectors, which served as a hopeful place for less educated women to seek employment in order to escape vicious cycle of under education and poverty. This process would accordingly increase the position of women through participation in workfare in sectors other than agricultural, leading more women to seek higher education and serve not only for the emancipation of women, but also for a countries´ better aggregate economic performance.22
The question of whether the discovery of natural resources is a blessing or a curse for the economy and for a country´s citizens is a contentious issue, and natural resources dependence is linked to various outcomes at national level as other researchers have been already done at: institutions, corruption, civil war and conflict, rent appropriation by an elite, democracy, and for our research most important female labor force participation.23 Ross
21 Thomas L. Friedman, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America.”
22 Micheal L. Ross, “Oil, Islam, and Women,” American Political Science Review 102, (New York: February 2, 2008)
23 Halvor Mehlum , Karl Moene, Ragnar Torvik, “Institutions and the Resource Curse,” The economic Journal – 2006
Micheal L. Ross, “Oil, Islam, and Women,”
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claims that women have made less progress toward gender equality in the Middle East than in any other region, and he suggests that it is not caused due to Islamic religion as many observers would claim.24 Ross suggests, that “women in the Middle East are underrepresented in the workforce and in government because of oil—not Islam,”25 judging from the empirical case studies of other societies, where patriarchal traditions in recent times were as strong as in Middle East, but due to diversification and openness of economy they had a chance to experience an economic boost, bringing more democratic regimes, and giving women opportunity to seek employment due to grow of employment market supply as in case of America and Europe mainly in 20th Century, where economic demand brought women into work force, subsequently lowering gender gaps by making women more independent out of their husbands.
Similarly, Ross claims that exploitation of natural resources hurts women´s employment via both demand and supply channels.26 In his model, female labour supply is reduced via household income effects, spurred by higher male incomes and/or government transfers, keeping women out of the workfare and inside of their homes, especially pointing on the case of MENA region. The demand for female labour decreases as oil export-oriented, mainly at countries with high dependence on oil export, causing female dominated manufacturing crowded out by Dutch disease effects – making them less competitive at international markets.27 This massive industrialization resulted in the fact that the economic growth performance of the Middle East in the 1960s reached one of the highest labor force
Tolonen Kotsadam, “African Mining, Gender, and local employment,” World Development
24 Micheal L. Ross, “Oil, Islam, and Women,” American Political Science Review 102, (New York: February 2, 2008)
25 Ibid.
26Ibid. p. 109-110
27 Michael L. Ross, “The Oil Curse: How the Petroleum Wealth Shapes Development of the Nations.” (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012) p.124
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growth rates in the developing world.28 “And the economic growth performance of the Middle East in the 1960s was the highest in the world at 6.0 percent per worker per year.”29 The rational logic would predict that the higher prices of oil would bring economic growth to the region at that time, but in the next decade in early 1970s productivity growth actually turned negative as is the example of Dutch disease observed before in Netherlands would suggest.30
Existing literature revealed many limitations of missing work providing direct linkage of oil revenues and gender status. There is only couple of existing scholars who are dealing with issues of oil and gender inequality; and all of them are claiming that oil has a negative impact on gender equality. However, indirectly we can examine some of the positive cases, where countries managed to escape resource course phenomenon and managed to score positive economic growth side by side with growing revenues from oil incomes managed to fulfil the gender gap as we can observe in cases of Norway and Botswana. Thus, it would be incorrect to claim that the women´s statuses in all petro-states are negatively affected by oil exploitation. However, on the other hand empirical cases studies indicate that countries possessing with more oil income flowing into aggregate GDP have tendency to have the highest gender inequality indexes.
In order to interconnect oil revenues and gender inequality, it is important to understand how economic development can affect status of women in the society. The causality of oil revenues would predict that oil revenues will raise economic development followed by improvement of gender gap. However, the previous section of literature review suggests negative correlation between oil revenues and economic development is negative, causing Dutch disease happens. “The relative status of women is poor in the developing
28 The World Bank, “Economic Growth in 1990s: Learning from Decade of Reform,” (Washington D.C: The World Bank, 2003) pp.156
29 Thomas Yousef, “Development, Growth and Policy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa since 1950,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 18, No 3 (Summer, 2004), p. 91
30 Thomas Yousef, “Development, Growth and Policy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa since 1950”
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world, compared to developed countries.”31 Most of the studies suggest that countries could raise their respective GDP levels by giving a chance for women to enter the labour market or vice versa, because both variables have mutual impact on each other.32 They found out significant impact of gender inequality on economic growth.33 On the other hands our graph suggest that many MENA countries already reached high levels of economic development as GDP and GDP per capita are indicating, but they struggle with social development, therefore it is important for this thesis to explain why oil revenues are not capable of meditating gender inequality through economic development.
Furthermore, economic development is promoting the openness of domestic markets in order to expose themselves to international markets, pushing forces of democracy to penetrate with trading of foreign goods at international markets.34 Strong evidence suggests that economic development and democracy are to a high extent correlated, as democracy is seen as important tool to push women emancipation to close the gender gaps.35 However, it seems that even economic development is not capable to push democracy forward to penetrate into MENA countries nor can it directly promote higher levels of gender equality in the region.
On the other hand other group of academics, including Michael Ross argue that oil revenues and high prices of oil can stabilize authoritarianism and authoritarian regimes, which are dominating in the most of the MENA countries´ politics.36 This complex network of
31 David Dollar and Roberta Gatti, “Gender Inequality, Income, and Growth: Are Good Times Good for Women?,” World Bank, (May 1999), Available at: http://darp.lse.ac.uk/frankweb/courses/EC501/DG.pdf
32 Meera Kaul, “The Role Of Gender Equality In Ensuring Economic Growth,” Entrepreneur, (April 11, 2016), Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/273825
33 Stephan Klasen, “Does Gender Inequality Reduce Growth and Development? Evidence from Cross-Country Regressions” Collaborative Research Center, (April 5, 2007), Available at:
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1602/
34 Esther Duflo, “Gender Equality and Economic Development,“ (Bocconi Lecture: 2010), Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIB8DlmaKh8
35 Barbara Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization After Twenty Years?,” Annual Reviews, (June 1999), Available at: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.115
36 Micheal L. Ross, “ Oil, Islam, and Women”
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aspects are putting many Muslim majority countries as extraordinary example where wealth is flowing from natural resources and bringing very limited economic development, which cannot have a positive effect on gender equality due to persistence of authoritarian politics in the region, which is not relocating resources to counter attack gender gap in their societies.
Therefore, the examination of gender budgeting would be needed to distinguish the different efforts of governments of particular Muslim majority countries.
The figure above visually points out that developed countries with higher gross domestic product per capita are doing better in terms of gender equality. As economic productivity of a particular country rises, the gender gap is becoming less and less visible and these gaps are particularly dramatic in developing countries.37 However, some countries mostly consisted out of MENA states are indicating that high GDP growth will not always bring positive socio-economic consequences for a country.38 Even due to the fact that employment gaps are closing much faster in developing countries rather than developed, but the gender inequality is still visible to high extent, especially in South East Asia and the MENA.39 Moreover, women are mostly considered as family workers and often not paid, which does not significantly support women´s position in the region´s societies.40 This might be also reason why some academics claim negative correlation between economic development and gender inequality.
Khayria Karoui and Rochdi Feki were debating the impact of these two variables in African countries; they found out that results can be biased by multiple factors, what we can
37 David Dollar and Roberta Gatti, “Gender Inequality, Income, and Growth: Are Good Times Good for Women?,” World Bank, (May 1999), Available at: http://darp.lse.ac.uk/frankweb/courses/EC501/DG.pdf
38 Stephanie Seguino, “Gender Inequality and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis,” Science Direct, (July 2000), Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X00000188
39 David Cuberes and Marc Teignier-Baque, “Gender Inequality and Economic Growth,” World Bank (Washington, DC: 2012), Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9117
Stephan Klasen, “Does Gender Inequality Reduce Growth and Development? Evidence from Cross-Country Regressions” Collaborative Research Center, (April 5, 2007), Available at:
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1602/
40 David Cuberes and Marc Teignier-Baque, “Gender Inequality and Economic Growth,” World Bank
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Therefore, the importance lies on explaining causality of variables (gender inequality, economic growth, level of democracy and oil revenues) affecting each other to find out why MENA countries are not fitting into the hypothesis of many scholars which try to explain the correlation between gender inequality and economic development through quantitative studies methods.
Economic development and diversification of the economy increases the set of available opportunities for women, which increases returns to education.43 On the other hand, following the logic in previous section, the Dutch disease of oil producing countries is making it impossible to diversify the economy and subsequently hindering the opportunity for women to seek employment.
Moreover, the oil revenues serve as blocking point for democracy to penetrate into political systems of the most of the countries in the region, strengthening autocratic regimes.
As the prices of oil are set up high, autocratic regimes in the region are providing relocation of oil revenues to keep themselves empowered, reducing chances for women to exit household since it is not needed. Oil revenues allowing governments to conduct direct transfers are hurting women chances to seek opportunity outside of their households. The money are not spent into the diversification of economy, but rather for the strengthening of the ruling regimes, in what could otherwise provide chances for women to seek employment.
41 Khayria Karoui and Rochdi Feki, “The Effect of Gender Inequality on Economic Development: Case of African Countries,” (Springer: December 23, 2015)
42 Stephan Klasen, “Does Gender Inequality Reduce Growth and Development? Evidence from Cross-Country Regressions” Collaborative Research Center
43 The Republic of Rwanda, “Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy II 2013-1018,” (May, 2013), Available at: http://www.rdb.rw/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/EDPRS_2_Main_Document.pdf
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In addition, gender inequality in education and health can also be explained to a considerable extent by religious preference, regional factors, and civil freedom. These systematic patterns in gender differentials suggest that low investment in women is not an efficient economic choice, and we can show that gender inequality in education is bad for economic growth.44 Thus, societies that have a preference for not investing in girls, they pay a price for it in terms of slower growth and reduced income, but MENA countries pay a price in
In addition, gender inequality in education and health can also be explained to a considerable extent by religious preference, regional factors, and civil freedom. These systematic patterns in gender differentials suggest that low investment in women is not an efficient economic choice, and we can show that gender inequality in education is bad for economic growth.44 Thus, societies that have a preference for not investing in girls, they pay a price for it in terms of slower growth and reduced income, but MENA countries pay a price in