Female labour force participation rates across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have remained low for over four decades even though, in the same period, women's education rapidly increased and fertility rates substantially decreased. This study provides a better understanding of this surprising phenomenon by testing whether the number of children affects the mother's labour supply (using twins at first birth as an instrumental variable.) Despite a strong first stage, it does not find statistically significant effects in the second stage, even in the combined sample of over 100,000 observations. This non‐result, however, does not rule out that fertility affects women's employment in these countries. But it rejects impacts larger than 0.09. Similar twin‐studies in the United States found effects between 0.12 and 0.31. The paper discusses the implications of this result in understanding the puzzle of female participation in MENA and in designing policies to increase women's employment.

中文翻译：

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中东和北非的生育率和女性就业难题

中东和北非地区的女性劳动力参与率在过去的四十年中一直很低，尽管在同一时期，女性的教育水平迅速提高，而生育率却大大下降。这项研究通过测试孩子的人数是否影响母亲的劳动力供应（使用第一胎的双胞胎作为工具变量），从而更好地理解了这一令人惊讶的现象。尽管第一阶段很强，但第二阶段并未发现统计学上的显着影响阶段，甚至在超过100,000个观测值的组合样本中也是如此。但是，这种无结果并不排除生育能力会影响这些国家妇女的就业。但是它拒绝大于0.09的影响。在美国，类似的双生子研究发现效应在0.12和0.31之间。