The effect of religion on women's labor force participation rates in Indonesia

Abstract

Modest increases in women's labor force participation rates could boost world GDP by at least six trillion dollars; full equality for women could increase world GDP by $28 trillion. One factor limiting women's labor force participation may be religion. We test the effect of religion on women's labor force participation rates in Indonesia. Using data from Indonesia's 2010 Census, we run a logit model for married rural women, married urban women, single rural women, and single urban women. We find that holding other factors equal, married Hindu women in urban areas are as much as 31 percentage points more likely to work than married Muslim urban women, while married Confucian women in rural areas are as much as 31 percentage points less likely to work than married Muslim rural women. These and other results are robust across different specifications and are both economically and statistically significant.

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