Do the effects depend on the sample used?

In a second step it is tested whether the results change if the sampling of countries is restricted to those countries with highly plausible values on the dependent variable. As discussed in chapter 5, for a few countries the female labor force participation rate estimated from the WVS/EVS data differs strongly from the female labor force participation rates provided by the ILO. While it is not clear which estimation is more realistic, in the following it is analyzed whether the central results of this thesis depend on those countries. For this purpose, all countries for which the estimated female labor force participation from the data of the WVS/EVS deviates by more than 20 percentage points from the numbers provided by the ILO are excluded from the analysis. The analyses are replicated with this smaller sample: 9 countries have been excluded from the analyses, which leave 31,684 observations in 74 countries. The detailed results can be found in the appendix (table A.3 – A.11); in the following only those results that differ from the results presented are described.

The impact of culture on female labor force participation measured as gender-role attitude is found to be a little bit stronger if those countries are excluded. This is especially the case for the social-norm effect after controlling for all possible mechanisms. While controlling for education, family status, and institutions, the effect of social norms is reduced to -0.36 in the full sample, in the smaller sample this effect is only reduced to -0.47 (controlling for natural rents, GDP, and living in Sub-Saharan Africa). This seems to be related to the effect of institutions in the smaller sample. Contrary to the full sample, the effect of divorce legislation is very weak and insignificant. Furthermore, the effect of the control variable of living in Sub- Saharan Africa increases strongly. Controlling for gender roles on an individual and a country

136

level as well as for natural rents and GDP, women living in Sub-Saharan countries are found to be 22 percentage points more likely to be active in the labor market than other women. No significant effect has been found in this model using the whole sample. This strong deviation emerges because, in the reduced sample, three Sub-Saharan African countries are excluded (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and South Africa) and only four Sub-Saharan countries remain (Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda) in the data.

The interaction analyses for differences in the effects of social norms and gender roles depending on level of economic development show no substantially different results for the reduced sample. The effects for both the main effect of social norms and individual preferences, respectively, and for the interaction terms are stronger and in line with the hypotheses in the case of the reduced sample. The same is true for the interaction between family status and social norms/gender roles, respectively.

For the analyses of the relevance of religion, only small deviations are found. The strongest deviations are found for model estimating the effect of religion on country level without controlling for individual denomination, in which a few effects are stronger in the reduced sample. Without control variables women living in Muslim countries have a 43 percentage point lower probability of being active in the labor market compared to women living in predominantly Protestant countries (compared to 41 percentage points in the full sample). Similarly to the group of Sub-Saharan African countries the group of Muslim countries differs between the full and the reduced sample. Nevertheless, the effects of the mechanisms show a similar reduction of the effect so that the substantial conclusions drawn from these analyses still stand. The analyses of the effect of religion on gender-role attitudes as well as the test whether attitudes are the central mechanism behind the relationship of religion and labor force participation show very similar results in the reduced sample.

As has already been described above, one MENA country in the sample, namely Morocco, has a very high and quite unrealistic female labor force participation rate according to the WVS data. Furthermore, Lebanon and Pakistan are excluded in the reduced sample. This raises the question how robust the results for the MENA analyses excluding those countries are. The analyses of the reduced sample reveal that the MENA effect is stronger in all models. The pure MENA effect without control variables in the reduced sample shows a 46 percentage points lower probability of being active in the labor market for women living in MENA countries compared to women living in other countries compared to 40 percentage points in the full sample. Controlling for the possible explanatory factors reduces the MENA

137

effect in a similar way as in the full sample; however, again the effect of the institutions does not explain as much of the effect in the reduced sample as it does in the full sample. After controlling for restrictions in the right to divorce and movement, women in MENA countries have a 36 percentage point lower probability of being active in the labor market compared to a 24 percentage point lower probability in the full sample. Controlling for all cultural factors (i.e. attitudes, Islam, institutions) leaves a MENA effect of -15 percentage points, which is significant on a 10 percent level. A similar picture emerges for the explanatory power of the structural factors. The higher MENA effect is reduced by controlling for natural resources, GDP, and education in a similar amount as in the full sample. Moreover, the interaction analysis reveals the same conclusion: education and family formation has a stronger effect on female labor force participation in the MENA region than in other regions. The interaction terms show even higher values in the reduced sample. For example, the likelihood for married women without children to participate in the labor market is 30 percentage points lower for women in the MENA region than for single women in the reduced sample, whereas in the full sample this value is 23 percentage points (compared to 13 percentage points for women outside the MENA region in both samples).

Overall, three conclusions can be derived from the analyses of the reduced sample. First, the general results of the effect of culture are very robust and even stronger if cases with implausible values on the dependent variable are excluded. Second, the effect of the institutions become weaker and cannot explain as much of the cultural effect in the reduced sample as in the full sample. This points to the fact that institutions play a different role in different countries and are more important in those countries which are excluded in the reduced sample. Third, excluding Morocco from the analyses with an extreme implausible value on the dependent variable leaves an MENA effect of a 15 percentage point lower probability of being active in the labor market for women living in MENA countries than for women living in other countries, also after controlling cultural and structural factors. Nevertheless, the central conclusion that culture plays an important role in the explanation of low female labor force participation hold true since the analyses show that the cultural factors explain a large share of the MENA effect and much more than the structural factors.

138