Essays on gender pay gap: The case of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Women continue to be undervalued in many aspects of life, including payment for their work, despite the numerous agreements made by the United Nations and internationally to promote and support gender equality. This thesis reports on three empirical studies, all of which cover aspects of the main knowledge gap the thesis aims to fill. The first empirical study examined international gender wage inequality across various income categories, religions, levels of development, and socio-cultural backgrounds and measured the impact of these factors over time, from 1984 to 2019, using means and meta-analyses, which shows the current stage of the gender wage gap. The second empirical study explored and analysed the gender wage difference across academic professions in Saudi Arabian universities to broaden understanding of the gender wage gap. Within the sociocultural milieu of Saudi Arabia, gender-driven education policy is proscribed a dynamic interaction of many experiences comprising of cultural, social, and religious factors leading to a complex narrative of unequal pay in Saudi universities. The third empirical study investigates gender discrimination in Saudi Arabian universities using a stochastic dominance method, which are considered to foster the country’s elite educational community. Investigating the dominant sociocultural framework and its origins could help to identify important issues relating to both women and men, broadening understanding of the processes that maintain the dominance of one gender and obstruct women’s capacity to access work and equal pay.
The findings of the three empirical chapters explain the strong impact of society, culture, and religion on gender wage differences according to traditional variables such as human capital and other factors. They also help to highlight the importance of enforcing the gender equality policies, especially in the Saudi context. Strong human capital and work in high-level occupations do not always correlate with better pay for women compared to men. More stringent policy enforcement could help to reduce the gender wage gap and benefit many women in terms of improved wages, at least partially, but it should fully consider the impact of society, culture, and religion.

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ORCID for Tapas Mishra: orcid.org/0000-0002-6902-2326

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