Provision of Religious Information about Female Labor Force Participation to College Students in Pakistan

Lab Experiments: We will use lab experiments to conduct the proposed research. The controlled environment of the lab would enable us to identify the precise impact of Islam on Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) attitudes, which can be difficult in a field where numerous other factors can possibly dilute this relationship.

We will use two types of Islamic teachings to establish the causal impact of Islam on FLFP attitudes. These Islamic teachings are already checked and confirmed by an Islamic scholar. One type encourages FLFP and the other potentially discourages it. While most scholars agree that Islam permits FLFP while remaining within the Islamic framework, most of the public does not know because these teachings do not get highlighted in society.

There will be one control and two treatment arms(T1 & T2). The control arm will not be exposed to any religious information. T1 will provide Islamic teachings emphasizing women’s right to work (positive frame). T2 will provide Islamic teachings about the rules and regulations women should follow if they work outside home (can be perceived negative). While T1 and T2 both contain religious information about FLFP, there is an important difference: T1 emphasizes women’s right to participate in labor force, while T2 emphasizes religious rules that must be followed by women participating in labor force. Therefore, T1 is inherently positive towards FLFP, while T2 can be perceived negative towards FLFP due to strict conditions that must be observed by women. These two conditions accurately capture the divided perceptions about FLFP in Pakistan, and therefore, are essential elements of our study. The control arm will not be exposed to any information. The exact experimental Instructions are provided in below. These instructions in Experimental Design will be provided to the participants in either T1 or T2 treatment arms.

Below instructions are given to the participants of T1 and T2 arms, respectively. They are contents of 3. Task in Experimental Design.

3.1 Instruction given to T1 arm (positive frame):
Before moving to the experimental tasks, please carefully read the following Islamic teachings and evidence that supports participation of women in Halal income generating activities. We would like to start off with Quranic teachings because they are a guiding source for all Muslims. These guidelines have been checked and agreed by a religious scholar (Mufti).

1) In Surah Al-Mu’minun (surah 23, verse 1 – 4) it is mentioned that:

“Believers will attain what they hope for. They are reverent in their prayers. They turn away from idle talk. They work for zakat.”

The word ‘believers’ contains both male and female Muslims. ‘They work for zakat’ can have two meanings as per religious scholars. The first meaning is that both male and female Muslims work to give zakat. The second meaning is that both male and female Muslims work for having zakat delivered to its recipients.

The scholars refer to this verse of Quran and suggest that female participation in the labor force is allowed in Islam. It is also important to mention that even though a female Muslim does not require money for herself (family is taking care of her financial requirements), she can still earn with a goal of paying zakat and helping the poor people.

2) In Surah Al-Qasas (surah 28, verse 22 - 23) it is mentioned:

“And when he arrived at the waters of Madyan, he found a large number of people watering (their animals) and found, aloof from them, two women keeping (their animals) back. He said, “What is the matter with you?” They said, “We cannot water (our animals) until these shepherds take (their animals) back after watering them, and our father is very old man.”

The above verses of Quran refer to the scenario where Prophet Musa (AS) went near the well and saw two females waiting for their turn to provide water to their animals. This passage shows that women have historically departed from their houses to perform necessary chores such as grazing animals if required by the circumstances.

3) Examples from the life of Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)

The life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) also serves as a role model for Muslims. A closer look at the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) also reveals following interesting elements regarding participation of women in the income generating and other important activities.

a) The first wife of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Hazrat Khadija (RA) was a very successful and well-known business woman. This example provides us clear evidence that women can take up Halal professions.

b) Jabir Ibn 'Abdullah (Allah be pleased with them) reported: My maternal aunt was divorced, and she intended to pluck her dates [from palm trees]. A person scolded her for having come out (during her waiting period). She came to the Prophet (PBUH) and he told her: "Certainly you can pluck (dates) from your palm trees, for perhaps you may give out charity or do an act of kindness." (Muslim, Sahih).

c) Women during the period of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) used to help armies during wars by suppling water.

The teachings and events mentioned earlier indicate that women can work if required. A majority of religious scholars and sharia experts (mufti) also approve women’s work. However, there are important Islamic guidelines for women that should be followed if they decide to work. However, for detailed instructions, please contact a religious scholar (Mufti).

We hope this discussion provides you some knowledge about the positive Islamic perspective on female labor force participation. In case you need further information on this topic, you can always read the translation and tafsir of Quran, read the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or contact your nearest religious scholars.

3.2 Instruction given to T2 arm (negative frame):
Before moving to the experimental tasks, as a source of knowledge, I would like to share the following Islamic guidelines for the participation of women in Halal income generating activities. These guidelines have been checked and agreed by a religious scholar (Mufti).

1) The work should be out of a need. For example, the female is not having any resource or bread earning member in the family. Similarly, women can also work if they want to support their family or old parents.

2) Women can also work even if she is not in need, provided her work does not hinder her other responsibilities as a wife and mother.

3) Women should seek permission of their guardian (husband or father) to work. If circumstances allow only one of them to work, then men will take precedence.

4) Islam has guided women about their dress code which they must follow all times, including work.

5) The work should not lead women to travel without a mahram or Muslim woman.

6) It is preferable that the societal environment must be either Islamic or friendly towards Muslims.

2026-02-01

2026-02-21

1. FLFP attitudes measured by Dictator Game (DG) donations.
2. FLFP attitudes measured by List Experiments (LE).
3. Subjective FLFP attitudes, i.e., their attitudes toward FLFP in general and toward their future wife or own sister to work outside the home.
4. Willingness to hire/work with women, i.e., future willingness to hire or work with men and women, respectively.

Right after the intervention, following the DG framework, we will elicit monetary donations to a foundation working to promote FLFP in Pakistan. The amount donated will be our first incentive-compatible outcome variable. The DG procedure is explained in the detailed experiments below (4. DG).

Following DG, we conduct LE to elicit FLFP attitudes. The LE procedure is explained in the detailed experiments below (5. List experiments).

Outcomes 3 and 4, attitudes towards FLFP, are measured by the questions F1-F8 in the questionnaire (Appendix). Specifically, F1 measures their attitude toward general women working outside the home. F3 measures their attitude toward their own (future) wife/sister (if any) working outside the home. F5-F6 measure the gap of their willingness to hire men and women. F7-F8 measure the gap of their willingness to work with men and women.

5. Gender attitudes, such as responsibility for household chores, decision-making, autonomy, mobility, women's rights (vote, education), FLFP, marriage.
6. Religiosity, such as frequency of prayers, visit to mosques, level of Islamic knowledge and understanding.

Outcomes 5 and 6 are not, in principle, considered outcomes of the intervention. However, they will serve as controls if they are balanced between the treatment and control groups.

Outcomes 5, gender attitudes, are measured by the questions GA1-GA15 in the questionnaire (Appendix). The respondents answer each of the 15 statements using a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree). GA2 and GA3 will be added to measure their attitudes toward women's mobility. GA5 and GA6 will be added to measure their attitudes toward patriarchy. GA7-GA9 will be added to measure their attitudes toward women's rights to education. GA10 and GA11 will be added to measure their attitudes toward women working outside the home. GA14 and GA15 will be added to measure their marriage market evaluation toward working brides. We will also use the gender attitudes index, which is the sum of GA1-GA15 measures; higher = more progressive.

Outcomes 6, religiosity, are measured by the questions R1-R15 in the questionnaire (Appendix). R1 (frequency of prayers) is the main variable to measure the respondents' ritual-based religiosity. We check the robustness of ritual-based measures using R2 (frequency of mosque visits) and R12 (frequency of Quran recitation). R5 (belief-based) and R6 (knowledge-based) will be used as other supplementary religiosity measures. R5 and R6 are 5-point Likert scale measures: self-declared religiosity (1 =Very religious; 5 =Not at all religious, reversed so higher = more religious) and knowledge-based: overall Islamic knowledge (1 =Expert; 5 =Never studied, reversed). Note that R8 and R11, i.e., the correct knowledge about FLFP in Islam, may be used as the outcomes of the intervention if they have sufficient variations. We will also use the religiosity index, which is the sum of all three measures; higher = more religious.

The lab experiments will be implemented with students at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) located in Islamabad, Pakistan. Within NUST, we will implement the study with students of NUST Business School (NBS). A full-time faculty member of NBS has already made organizational arrangements for implementing our experiments. As our study intends to examine the impact of religious information on FLFP attitudes of young male members of the society, our participants in the experiments will be male students, both undergraduate and graduate. We will exclude female students as they fall outside the aims and objectives of the current study.

We will obtain schedule of those classes at NBS after which the classroom is exclusively available to us for at least one hour to conduct experiments. At the end of the selected classes, Co-PI (Hamza Umer) will enter the classroom and announce that he would like to conduct an economic experiment, clarify that participation is completely voluntary, and the decision to participate or leave will have no impact on student’s academic grades. Interested male students will stay in the classroom and participate in experiment.

On average, there are 50 students in every class at NBS, and approximately half are male. Our previous experience of implementing experiments at NBS shows that on average, three to five students from every class do not participate in the experiment and leave. Therefore, to obtain the required sample of 300 male participants, we will randomly select thirteen classes from the list of classes after which the classroom is available for at least one hour, and hope to obtain 300 participants. However, if our required sample is not achieved, we will again randomly select classes from the list and repeat this procedure until we obtain our required sample. In case we are unable to obtain the required sample from NBS, we will target male students in other departments of NUST by obtaining necessary permissions from those departments. As a backup, we have discussed the possibility of implementing experiments with faculty members of the NUST School of Social Sciences and Humanities (S3H), and they are happy to accommodate our request.

In the reserved classroom for experiments, Co-PI (Hamza Umer) will proceed by announcing the experiment and instructing that the interested students sit in an exam formation to ensure participants make decisions privately. Afterwards, an informed consent form (Appendix) will be distributed among the students. Once students read and sign it, the experimental instructions sheet containing 1 to 3 below (detailed) will be distributed. Once everyone reads the instructions, the decision sheet (4 - 6) will be distributed. Afterwards, the post-experiment survey (7 - 8) will be distributed. At the end, participants will be paid in private the fixed participation fee and the money based on their decision in DG and a signed payment slip (9) will be obtained. The experimental materials 1 – 2, and 4, 6– 9 are the same for treatment and control groups. The intervention component 3 is different for T1 and T2 arms, and absent for the control arm. The list experiments (LE) component 4 is different between LE treated and LE controlled.

Experimental Design

The lab experiments will be implemented with students at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) located in Islamabad, Pakistan. Within NUST, we will implement the study with students of NUST Business School (NBS). A full-time faculty member of NBS has already made organizational arrangements for implementing our experiments. As our study intends to examine the impact of religious information on FLFP attitudes of young male members of the society, our participants in the experiments will be male students, both undergraduate and graduate. We will exclude female students as they fall outside the aims and objectives of the current study.

We will obtain schedule of those classes at NBS after which the classroom is exclusively available to us for at least one hour to conduct experiments. At the end of the selected classes, Co-PI (Hamza Umer) will enter the classroom and announce that he would like to conduct an economic experiment, clarify that participation is completely voluntary, and the decision to participate or leave will have no impact on student’s academic grades. Interested male students will stay in the classroom and participate in experiment.

On average, there are 50 students in every class at NBS, and approximately half are male. Our previous experience of implementing experiments at NBS shows that on average, three to five students from every class do not participate in the experiment and leave. Therefore, to obtain the required sample of 300 male participants, we will randomly select thirteen classes from the list of classes after which the classroom is available for at least one hour, and hope to obtain 300 participants. However, if our required sample is not achieved, we will again randomly select classes from the list and repeat this procedure until we obtain our required sample. In case we are unable to obtain the required sample from NBS, we will target male students in other departments of NUST by obtaining necessary permissions from those departments. As a backup, we have discussed the possibility of implementing experiments with faculty members of the NUST School of Social Sciences and Humanities (S3H), and they are happy to accommodate our request.

In the reserved classroom for experiments, Co-PI (Hamza Umer) will proceed by announcing the experiment and instructing that the interested students sit in an exam formation to ensure participants make decisions privately. Afterwards, an informed consent form (Appendix) will be distributed among the students. Once students read and sign it, the experimental instructions sheet containing 1 to 3 below (detailed) will be distributed. Once everyone reads the instructions, the decision sheet (4 - 6) will be distributed. Afterwards, the post-experiment survey (7 - 8) will be distributed. At the end, participants will be paid in private the fixed participation fee and the money based on their decision in DG and a signed payment slip (9) will be obtained. The experimental materials 1 – 2, and 4, 6– 9 are same for treatment and control groups. The intervention component 3 is different for T1 and T2 arms, and absent for the control arm. The list experiments (LE) component 4 is different between LE treated and LE controlled.

Experimental Instructions

1. Introduction
Thank you for participating in the experiment. Your decisions during the experiment will not be shared with others and shall only be used for research purposes.

Please do not talk to other participants, or else, you will be disqualified from the experiment. In case you are disqualified due to non-compliance with experimental protocols, or in case you decide to leave the experiment before completion, the documents collected from you in both cases will be shredded and destroyed today to protect all your details. They will not be used for further analysis. If you have any questions during any stage of the experiment, please raise your hand and wait for the experimenter. Only relevant questions will be answered. Use of mobile phones is prohibited. When you finish reading the instructions, wait for the next announcement from the experimenter.

2. Procedure
The experiment will take approximately 45 minutes. You will receive a participation fee of 500 rupees. In addition, you can earn more money, up to 1000 rupees, during the experiment based on your decisions. The amount of money you earn based on your decisions, and your participation fee will be paid at the end of the experiment to you in an envelope.

3. Task
(Different passages will be read for T1 and T2 treatment arms, respectively. See the Intervention for specific passages. There is no task for the control arm.)

4. DG (Outcome)
In this section, you will make one decision that involves real money. Please carefully read the instructions before making the decision. The money you earn in this section will be paid at the end of the experiment. In case you have any questions, please raise your hand and wait for the experimenter.

You have been provided 1000 rupees by the experimenter. Please indicate if any out of these 1000 rupees you would like to donate to a foundation in Pakistan that has been working specifically with women on several programs, such as, providing vocation and financial trainings to help women enter the labor market and become an earning member of the society. If you do not donate, you will obtain all 1000 rupees at the end of the experiment.

Donation (if any): __________________ PKR

At the end of the experiments, the experimenter will transfer money donated in all experimental sessions together at once to the foundation. In case you donated and need a proof of cumulative donations, please provide your details below.

Name:
Email Address:
Telephone Number:
Student ID:

5. List experiments
Instruction to experimenter: Randomize list experiment (hereafter LE) treatment and control within the arms above (positive T1, negative T2 or neutral/control arms) so that we have both LE treatment and LE control in T1, T2, and control arms, respectively. Please randomize the order that each following statement appears.

LE Treatment questions:
How many of the following statements do you agree with? You do not need to respond to each statement individually; simply provide the total number of statements you agree with.
- In my opinion, Pakistani nationals should receive privileged access to job vacancies before non Pakistani workers.
- In my opinion, the current pension system in the public sector is good.
- In my opinion, the monthly minimum wage should be kept at its current level.
- In my opinion, my future wife or wife (if married) will work outside the home for pay.

LE Control questions:
How many of the following statements do you agree with? You do not need to respond to each statement individually; simply provide the total number of statements you agree with.
- In my opinion, Pakistani nationals should receive privileged access to job vacancies before non-Pakistani workers.
- In my opinion, the current pension system in the public sector is good.
- In my opinion, the monthly minimum wage should be kept at its current level.

6. FLFP Related Attitudes (Outcomes)
We ask participants to answer the questions in a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire is provided in Appendix. The questions F1-F8 are outcomes measuring both attitudes toward women working outside the home, and their willingness to hire/work with women in the future.

7. Post-experimental survey (Gender Attitudes and Religiosity)
The questions GA1-GA15 measure the respondent's attitudes toward gender. The questions R1-R15 measure the respondent's religiosity. The structured questionnaire is provided in Appendix.

8. Post-experimental survey (Demographic and Socioeconomic Variables)
We ask participants to answer the demographic and socioeconomic questions in a structured post-experiment questionnaire. The questionnaire is provided in Appendix.

9. Payment Slip
At the end, participants are paid in private their earned money and fixed participation fee. A signed payment slip is also obtained. The payment slip is provided in Appendix.

Note (this information is not a part of the experimental instructions):
At the end of all experiments, the cumulative amount of money donated by all students will be transferred to the recipient charity organization, either via bank transfer or by visiting the organization’s office in Lahore. In either case, a formal payment receipt will be obtained and retained as proof. An electronic copy of the receipt will be shared via email with participants who wish to verify the payment made to the charity organization.

Public lottery across three arms.

Individual

No

300 male university students

300 male university students

100 students control, 100 students positive frame treatment, 100 students negative frame treatment

We calculate the minimum detectable effect size using the STATA command 'power'. Although World Value Survey asks the questions related to the attitudes toward women working outside the home, there are no reported statistics for Pakistan. Therefore, we use the FLFP rate as a proxy for these attitudes. According to the latest ILOSTAT and most recent Pakistan Labour Force Survey (2024-25), the rate of college degree women who work outside the home is 25%. With 0.25 standard deviations for the control and treatment groups, type I error at 5% level, the statistical power at 80%, and a given sample size (N=100 per arm), the minimum detectable effect size is 10 ppt.

Provision of Religious Information about Female Labor Force Participation to College Students in Pakistan