The Impact of Anti-Veiling Legislation on Employment Outcomes and Religiosity

Abstract

Eight different European Union member countries and counting have policies that prevent residents from wearing the hijab, burqa, or niqab in public spaces. The practice of veiling itself has unique implications as a commitment mechanism and socioeconomic signal (Carvahlo, 2013), which suggest that anti-veiling legislation would decrease social integration between religious groups. I study the impacts of anti-veiling legislation in Germany with a difference in differences approach, using two data sets on labor market outcomes and perception of society (the German Socio-Economic Panel and International Social Survey Programme Religion Survey) and find that anti-veiling legislation did not have statistically significant effects on church attendance or direct employment status for Muslim women. I also find suggestive evidence that post treatment, Muslim women were more likely to report they were job searching and more likely to identify as politically engaged, with stronger impact on political engagement for Muslim female college students. Ultimately, these results understood in the context of low rates of full face veiling amongst German women, suggest that anti-veiling legislation has promise for examining the flow of interaction and influence between religious identity, the economy, and the law.