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Notes -
A few weeks ago I wrote about a post about the link between feminism and declining fertility rates, I used Saudi Arabia as an example. Since 1980 Saudi Arabia has gradually loosened many of its old restrictions on women, women have become more "empowered", and correspondingly fertility rates have dropped from a sky-high 7+ to just over 2 (replacement level).
User /u/2rafa objected to my claim, saying:
I decided to go down a rabbit-hole tracing the history of patriarchy and liberalization in Saudi Arabia.
The first thing I found is that there is a lot of lying going on. For instance the current young prince of Saudi Arabia says:
This is apparently just false. Religious police patrolling the streets for vice was a practice going back centuries. Saudi Arabia Women were banned from driving in 1957.
An Jamal Khashoggi (later assassinated, allegedly by Prince Salman) wrote in the Washington Post in response to the Prince:
We can also corroborate this from articles at the time. Here is a NY Times article from 1975:
It's unclear what the "conservative backlash" after the 1979 uprising amounted to. The only clear policy change I can find is banning women from roles on TV. However, this may have been more of bone thrown to the conservatives, while as a whole society continued to slowly march leftward and more feminist. Overall, seems the country gradually became more feminist as the birth rates gradually declined:
(I use college attendance as a key metric of feminist advancement because it is one of the only metrics that is easy to quanitify and it is one of the most important institutions for tipping the scales from patriarchy to "women's liberation": 1) it takes women away from the oversight and tutelage of her father and family 2) it represents a big investment in skills unrelated to being a wife or mother 3) it immerses her in messaging from the universe that these job and academic skills are super important 4) university and the years preparing for university are extremely central to life.
(...part 2, in which we travel through time via newspaper articles, to be continued as a reply...)
(...part 2...)
Newspapers articles seem to corroborate this narrative of gradual movement toward women's lib. As I read these articles, one thing I noticed is that in general it seems like the King and the government were trying to please both sides. They were trying to show the U.S. and the West that they were becoming more "modern" and treating women well, but also trying to show Islamic conservative critic that they were still obeying Islam. So maybe while the government would throw a sop to the conservatives by banning women from TV, the government would at the same time push women's education and employment -- but would say this is for economic reasons and not social reasons and not in violation of Islamic law. Ultimately, the latter was far more important toward ending patriarchy. Let's review the history through some articles.
From a 1981 article:
Italics mine -- note the government is playing a double game of assuaging the conservatives while telling the NY Times and Westerners that they are "progressing."
From another 1981 article:
In 1982 Saudi Arabia got a new king, who was depicted "as the leading figure in a progressive, modernizing faction within the tradition-minded monarchy."
We should keep in mind that of course Saudi Arabia is still very patriarchal and has very high brith rates at this point. The changes described in the previous two articles are just a beginning.
Leading on to 1989 we see more of a movement leftward, which is supported by the King and the government:
From a 1990 article, Saudi Arabia is officially extremely patriarchal, birthrates still very high, but women's lib creeping in:
Again, Saudi Arabia is still more patriarchal than the West (and has higher birth rates), but being "investigated" and "threatened" is still more liberal than being executed (as the adulterous Princess of 1977 was) or stoned (as the New York Times claims was the practice in the 1950s and 1960s).
From 1991, now in debt to the West after the Gulf War, the King is liberalizing by forming citizen councils:
(...part 3 continues as a reply...)
In 2000, as part of opening up Saudi Arabia to new capital markets, the government signed conventions on human rights. Presumably, these conventions had stipulations about women's rights:
in 2001, Saudi Arabia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), although they did so with reservations that it would only do so when not in violation of Islamic law.
In 2002, Saudi women talk about how discrimination against women still exists, but "progress" is being made:
In 2005, the Saudi King started creating cities "free from the influence of Wahabi clerics":
In 2005, Saudi Arabia banned forced marriages.
In 2009, first women minister became member of the cabinet.
In 2012, government ministries are actively helping women to seek work:
In 2012, domestic abuse is now criminalized. Male guardian consent is no longer required for women to seek work.
Women voted for the first time in 2015.
2017 women allowed to drive.
2018, the King restricted the powers of the religious police, women no longer forced to wear the hijab in public.
2019, guardianship system is mostly rolled back. Women are allowed to travel abroad without male relative permission. "Women will now receive standard employment discrimination protections. They now also have the right to register the births of their children, live apart from their husbands, and obtain family records. And along with her husband, a woman can also now register as a co-head of household."
2019 -- marriages under age 18 banned.
2021 -- women can marry and divorce without permission. Single women now can live independently without a male guardian.
Saudi Arabia is now more feminist/liberal than 1950s United States -- and accordingly, its birth-rates are significantly lower than 1950s United States.
We can still debate a few things: 1) to what extent did "women's lib" happen as a result of government support and policy, and to what extent it was the result of sattelite TV and the prestige of American culture? 2) Could the government have stopped "women's lib" if it wanted to, or is it an inevitable result of being wealthy and having modern technology? However, whatever the role of government policy, it does seem clear to me that over the last 40 years there was a gradual process whereby patriarchy eroded and women did become more liberated/empowered.
(end of posts)
Nice effort-post! And thanks for doing the hard work of examining qualitative evidence.
Your main point is: (A) there's been a lot of female empowerment in Saudi Arabia over the past half-a-century, and (B) that's what explains the coincidental drop in fertility rates.
I agree that evidence indicates a substantial rise of female empowerment. To back up your qualitative evidence: Gender Inequality Index has a sharp drop in 2013, going from higher than Iran to on-par with Russia. "This index covers three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and economic status." For comparison, I have included other countries: USA is lower than Russia but higher than Japan, which in turn is higher than South Korea, which by 2015 is on par with Sweden.
I looked at other measurements in Our World In Data, but many of those measurements don't take into account that almost 40% of people in Saudi Arabia are migrant workers, most of whom are men.
However, I am far from convinced that female empowerment is the main cause of the drop in fertility rates.
There is a strong correlation between fertility rate and child mortality rate, and this is likely causal. If you want to eventually have three adult children and each baby is likely to reach adulthood, then you only need to have three babies; but if half of babies die before adulthood, then you better plan to have six babies.
In Saudi Arabia, child mortality starts dropping in the 60's and 70's, and fertility rate start dropping in the 80's. That's the kind of generational delay I would expect: people get used to the fact that kids aren't dying like flies, and adjust accordingly.
The correlation between female empowerment and fertility rate could have the opposite causal explanation: as it became less necessary for women to have lots of babies in order for a few of them to survive to adulthood, the society can empower women to marry later, get more education, and participate more in the labor force.
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