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"But regardless of culture, female employment rises with job-creating growth."

Agreed. Next I look forward to your explicitly connecting the literature on economic freedom with economic growth. While the literature comes to diverse conclusions, especially with respect to the impact on growth of different indicators on economic growth, on balance economic liberalism, as measured by economic freedom indices, is beneficial for job-creating growth. Whether or not one then describes that as "neoliberalism" is a different question, but given the knee-jerk manner in which many academics use "neoliberalism" as an epithet, it is significant that the best way to improve the condition of women globally is to increase economic freedom, thus job-creating growth.

One of many articles,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9950822/

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Aren't there some confounding factors here? Singapore's housing policy effectively banned ethnic conclaves and forced a degree of assimilation. There is also the fact that Singapore has national conscription which, of course, only applies to men but also probably helps in creating a unified national culture. So it would make sense that the social norms of the minority communities would converge to the majority Chinese norms.

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author

This is a GREAT point. I wouldn't call it a 'confounding factor', though. More like something that may have encouraged job-taking. That said, even in countries with ethnic enclaves like the UK, Hindu Indian British women work at high rates - en par with white British women.

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But as you have also mentioned British Muslim women aren't working at high rates. From what I understand the Malay women in Singapore are mostly Muslims.

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author

First generation Pakistani and Bangladeshi women work at much lower rates, but second generation work at high rates.

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What is the gap between the female labor force participation rates for Malays, Chinese and Indians when adjusted by class in MALAYSIA? From what I understand there is more segregation between the races in Malaysia.

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author

Yes, you’re right, in Malaysia, there are larger ethnic differences in female employment.

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I think at least part of the reason is that PAP as a party belongs quite firmly to the type of modernizing/developmental parties of of East Asia (both those to the left and right).

It was also once quite left wing, even outflanking the communists from the left briefly during independence.

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