Foreign direct investment, trade openness, and the gender unemployment gap in Saudi Arabia: An empirical ARDL approach

This study is one of the few that examines how foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade openness affect female and male unemployment rates in Saudi Arabia. The analysis uses the gender unemployment gap index (GGI) and applies an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model along with the Bounds test to explore these relationships. The results show three main findings: First, FDI has a positive and significant effect on the unemployment gap between women and men, suggesting that women have not benefited from FDI inflows during this period. Second, both short-run and long-run estimates show that trade openness has a negative and significant impact on female unemployment, meaning that increasing international trade reduces unemployment among women, while it may lead to higher unemployment among men. Third, the results indicate that women have not benefited from public investment or oil revenues, as their unemployment rate tends to increase with these economic factors.