Reply What’s So Special about the Arabian Peninsula? A Reply to Groh and Rothschild∗

My 2008 article suggested that oil wealth, but not Islam, has impeded progress towards gender equality in the Middle East. Groh and Roth-schild re-examine one part of my study, which reported a statistical correlation between oil rents and female labor force participation; they argue that the ‘‘deep cultural history’ ’ of the Arabian Peninsula offers a better explanation for the observed correlations. In this brief reply, I note that they do not accurately describe my conclusions and analysis; that other evidence in the article does not support their argument; and that they have not identified what makes the Arabian Peninsula so dif-ferent from the rest of the Middle East — apart from its extraordinary oil wealth. ∗ I am grateful to Jørgen Juel Andersen, Lisa Blaydes, James DeNardo, and Paasha Mahdavi for their helpful insights and suggestions, and the QJPS editors for inviting me to write this reply. Supplementary Material available from