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This is thankfully starting to change. Women were allowed to vote and run in the country’s first parliamentary elections in 2006.

But since a sizeable majority of UAE residents are not citizens, changes to the participatory power of Emirati women in local politics are likely to do little to redress the more immediate consequences of the gender gap on the nation’s economy and society.

In many ways, the demographics of the UAE’s economy resemble those of frontier America,

But the biggest concern may not be how the global crisis aggravates the surfeit of men; rather how it irritates our shortage of women.

Regardless of whether men start fist fights in shawarma stalls or stage riots over parking, no city can be considered civilised without a feminine touch.As Mr Courtwright suggests, men behave much better when there are women about.

There is some biological evidence to support this: long-term studies of men have found that single men have higher levels of testosterone, the hormone responsible for male attributes and correlated to aggression, than men who are married.

If the Government carries through with big infrastructure projects but offers no support for the service sector and small and medium-sized enterprises, where will women find work?Conversely, as businesses outside of construction cut costs, job losses are likely to fall disproportionately on the already smaller population of women working in the UAE.Economists note that population loss may be one of the biggest risks to the UAE’s economy. It could be argued further that losing one woman has more economic impact than losing one man. Many of the women leaving the UAE, after all, are married to men who have lost their jobs.