Natalya Rahman

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2022 - 2023 Academic Year

Paths into the Labor Force and Women's Empowerment in Pakistan

Studies that document the link between women's labor force participation (LFP) and positive development outcomes implicitly assume that women select into the labor force. My project distinguishes between this selection and other paths into the labor force. Specifically, I show that LFP might be imposed on women by family or by circumstances (e.g., economic deterioration or the absence of the patriarch). This imposed LFP likely affects women's social and political lives differently than selected LFP. My dissertation examines the nature of these different paths to LFP and their consequences for women's social networks, political empowerment, and gender attitudes.

Natalya Rahman, Department of Political Science

Natalya Rahman is a PhD Candidate in Stanford University's Department of Political Science. Rahman's research is about gender and development, specifically women's participation in the public sphere in South Asia, with a focus on Pakistan. She uses quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods in her work. In addition to her dissertation about women's labor force participation in Pakistan, Rahman is working on a field experiment to randomize women's access to motorbikes in Karachi. Rahman earned her Bachelor's degree in politics at Princeton University (summa cum laude).

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