Oil-based economies do not necessarily drive women out of the labour market

There are large differences in the labor force participation rate of women compared with men across the world. Many commentators suggest that in some countries, this is due to the importance of extractive industries such as oil mining, which tend to be biased towards male employment. Using data from the early 20th century oil boom in the American South, Stephan Maurer and Andrei Potlogea find that the female labour force participation rate and the employment rate are largely unaffected in a county after oil is discovered, and that the same is true for the average numbers of hours that women work. They write that this may be due to an expanding service sector associated with a growing oil mining industry, which can be an important employer for women, as well as increasing average wages across both genders.