"Low oil prices have limited the government jobs that many Saudis have long relied on, and the kingdom is trying to push more citizens, including women, into gainful employment. But some working Saudi women say hiring private drivers to get them to and from work eats up much of their pay, diminishing the incentive to work."
I'm guessing that this is the biggest driver - Saudi Arabia just cannot afford to not allow this anymore.
The dual income household had an unbelievable impact on Western and Asian economies, buoying incredible growth.
How the KSA handles the coming social liberalization will be interesting, Chinese women still grapple with social conservative attitudes regarding working women (ie: leftover women). It is inevitable that the people of the KSA will encounter similar difficulties.
Actually, the "leftover women" phrase refers to the relationship / marital status of some women, not their job status. Many of these women (including people I know personally) have reclaimed the term as a compliment -- there's a pun where they substitute a word that roughly means god-like or badass.
My mom and both of my grandmothers lived in a world where the dual income household is the norm, and has been the norm since the 50's, but since the 80's and 90's, there has been a retrograde shift because for a while, being a stay-at-home-mom became a status symbol. However, all of my cousins, male or female, are part of dual-income households. (They all live in Shanghai.) But that's a much longer rant and off-topic to the current discussion.
But +1 to your initial point, re: effect of dual income households on the economy.
A parent leaves their kids with their grandparents during the day = $0 GDP.
A parent drops of them off at daycare = +$X GDP.
Just because people were not working in the economic system does not mean there was not real value creation.
My mother sometimes worked, sometimes did not. The difference in the quality of our lives was quite noticeably more negative when she worked. That 'negative value' is not measured in the GDP - only the 'positive value' of her income.
I'm not saying that she shouldn't have, and certainly not that there should not have been mass reforms - but it's important to remember that much of 'real consumer surplus' is simply not measured in the GDP.
Policies that focus on the GDP tend to overweight measurable economic activity - while other elements are externalized and suffer.
The environment, community, social cohesion - they all have value to us but because we don't put numbers behind them, they don't fit into the equations very well.
If a country thinks it's okay to throw half of its brain power down the sinkhole, sure, why not, go ahead and do it. Just don't start crying afterwards that other countries are zooming past you on the highway to progress.
And renewables/EVs are just getting started. It will be interesting to see what other freedoms Saudis will allow once EVs and renewables are a significant portion of the global market.
Macro forces leave them a certain percentage wiggle room in production to affect price but US oil and the world wide reduction in demand rule even over OPEC at its strongest and OPEC is practically dead really.
While US producers price their projects in the $25-35 cost per boe produced and the Fed keeps rates low the US can keep on trucking and Saudi can do very little about it. There are billions of barrels of oil sitting offshore in ships waiting for better prices.
There are hundreds of fracked fields that can be turned on and off like a faucet.
Sure offshore deep water is slow due to cost and cannot respond to swings readily but the fundamentals changed years ago.
My favorite example is the South Carolina law that was finally rescinded a few years back, where bars had to serve their mixed alcoholic drinks with liquor poured from single-serving 'airline' style bottles. A colossal waste of time and resources, but the kicker was the arguments against rescinding the law-- some folks arguing that DUI rates would go through the roof and The Children (TM) would all die, and others arguing that bartenders would rip off patrons with 'short pours'.
All without a single thought to stop and consider the example of the other 49 states, not to mention other countries...
The current example is the effort to make suppressors more available. Those opposed are already pushing tales of dramatically increasing crime rates and poaching instead of acknowledging that even suppressed firearms are still very loud or that many other OECD countries (which have more strict regulation) allow or even encourage the use of suppressors.
The sad part about using fear to support or oppose change is that you rarely end up with solutions that actually solve the underlying societal problem via a sensible compromise.
There are still groups of humans living relatively or completely unconnected from the world that wouldn't seem out of place 10,000 years ago. It's not exactly appalling that societies that don't respect basic freedoms exist, it's appalling that they're allowed to participate at all in the global economy and society.
<< insert picture of Saudi prince and president shaking hands >>
Just wait until the 22nd century. People will wonder how crazy we were to allow humans full control of a two tonne chunk of steel, where a lapse of concentration for a few seconds could easily kill themselves and others. And let’s not even begin to think about it being propelled by controlled ignition of highly flammable fluids...
Well, I believe that they were the last country in the world to prohibit it, so even if you look at it from a societal bias perspective, Saudi Arabia's policy is now in agreement with everyone else.
No, the use of the word “agrees” conveys the fact that there was a party other than the one making the decision requesting the outcome, while “decides" is less specific. There is no “bias” revealed except one toward communicating facts.
Now, if there was editorializing about the desirability of the decision, e.g., “finally agrees”, you'd have a point about bias (though the would be bias of those involved in the headline, not necessarily societal bias.)
Of course, there is a widespread (though not universal) societal bias toward treating women at least as human beings with the basic right to participate indepebdently in society, and I don't have any problem with that. But nothing in the headline points to that bias.
I'm totally in support of this. Strangely, the second thought after "wow" that I had was: I wonder what the backlash will be. I think my big, pessimistic lesson from the Obama years was that moves that I see as progress will probably be met with an equal and opposite antithesis.
It's not mentioned anywhere in the article that a male relative is required to be in the car. Also, it sounds like their police will need some training to interact with female drivers, as by my understanding Saudi women don't normally interact with people who aren't family members.
The police will need to be trained to interact with women in a way that they rarely do in a society where men and women who are not related rarely interact.
I suppose that women driving alone would also extend new interactions with gas stations, shops, etc. Perhaps that won't open up all at once, but this does seem to open more than one door.
It's pretty messed up how this mirrors similar questions that come up when discussing autonomous vehicles- While we in the West try to come to grips with the agency of computer systems, other places are still trying to come to grips with agency for adult humans.
It's crazy to think that women will only have been driving in Saudi Arabia for at most 20 years before the autonomous vehicles are required and no one drives anymore.
Germany has recently banned burqas while driving[1], but not because they were considered unsafe. Instead, the ban forbids having anything that makes you impossible to identify in camera.
So my guess is that they are not really unsafe, or they would have been banned earlier for that specific reason.
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I'm guessing that this is the biggest driver - Saudi Arabia just cannot afford to not allow this anymore.
How the KSA handles the coming social liberalization will be interesting, Chinese women still grapple with social conservative attitudes regarding working women (ie: leftover women). It is inevitable that the people of the KSA will encounter similar difficulties.
My mom and both of my grandmothers lived in a world where the dual income household is the norm, and has been the norm since the 50's, but since the 80's and 90's, there has been a retrograde shift because for a while, being a stay-at-home-mom became a status symbol. However, all of my cousins, male or female, are part of dual-income households. (They all live in Shanghai.) But that's a much longer rant and off-topic to the current discussion.
But +1 to your initial point, re: effect of dual income households on the economy.
That only depends on how you measure value.
A parent leaves their kids with their grandparents during the day = $0 GDP.
A parent drops of them off at daycare = +$X GDP.
Just because people were not working in the economic system does not mean there was not real value creation.
My mother sometimes worked, sometimes did not. The difference in the quality of our lives was quite noticeably more negative when she worked. That 'negative value' is not measured in the GDP - only the 'positive value' of her income.
I'm not saying that she shouldn't have, and certainly not that there should not have been mass reforms - but it's important to remember that much of 'real consumer surplus' is simply not measured in the GDP.
Policies that focus on the GDP tend to overweight measurable economic activity - while other elements are externalized and suffer.
The environment, community, social cohesion - they all have value to us but because we don't put numbers behind them, they don't fit into the equations very well.
Then why not much deviation from historical trend lines:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/29/invisible-women/
Macro forces leave them a certain percentage wiggle room in production to affect price but US oil and the world wide reduction in demand rule even over OPEC at its strongest and OPEC is practically dead really.
While US producers price their projects in the $25-35 cost per boe produced and the Fed keeps rates low the US can keep on trucking and Saudi can do very little about it. There are billions of barrels of oil sitting offshore in ships waiting for better prices.
There are hundreds of fracked fields that can be turned on and off like a faucet.
Sure offshore deep water is slow due to cost and cannot respond to swings readily but the fundamentals changed years ago.
Dead Comment
It is absolutely appalling that this type of backwardness is still a reality in the 21st century.
The faster we can transition to clean, renewable energy, the better for everyone in the world.
All without a single thought to stop and consider the example of the other 49 states, not to mention other countries...
The current example is the effort to make suppressors more available. Those opposed are already pushing tales of dramatically increasing crime rates and poaching instead of acknowledging that even suppressed firearms are still very loud or that many other OECD countries (which have more strict regulation) allow or even encourage the use of suppressors.
The sad part about using fear to support or oppose change is that you rarely end up with solutions that actually solve the underlying societal problem via a sensible compromise.
All the people from CA who chucked when they read this should consider the pot and kettle relationship.
<< insert picture of Saudi prince and president shaking hands >>
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gold-miners-murder-...
Why do you think petrol will be different? Electric is only marginally viable now, more than a century after internal combustion's invention.
Dead Comment
Now, if there was editorializing about the desirability of the decision, e.g., “finally agrees”, you'd have a point about bias (though the would be bias of those involved in the headline, not necessarily societal bias.)
Of course, there is a widespread (though not universal) societal bias toward treating women at least as human beings with the basic right to participate indepebdently in society, and I don't have any problem with that. But nothing in the headline points to that bias.
The police will need to be trained to interact with women in a way that they rarely do in a society where men and women who are not related rarely interact.
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Deleted Comment
So my guess is that they are not really unsafe, or they would have been banned earlier for that specific reason.
[1] http://www.dw.com/en/german-bundesrat-approves-burqa-ban-for...
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