marriage outcomes and women empowerment after marriage:a three countries story
TRANSCRIPT
Marriage Outcomes and Women Empowerment after Marriage:
A Three Countries Story
Hanan Nazier- Racha RamadanFaculty of Economics and Political Science- Cairo University
ERF annual ConferenceAmman Jordan
March 2017
Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Objective, Gaps. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Objective, Gaps. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Introduction: Institution of Mariage in MENA
• Two important and unique features of the institution of marriage that shape the economics of marriage in the region can be distinguished: 1. Marriage outcomes are determined through bargaining between
two families rather than two individuals2. Uneven rights within marriage, justified by tradition and religion,
favor men once the marriage has taken place.
• Usually the families of the bride and groom, and especially that of the bride, occupy an important part in the negotiations.
• Negotiations cover not only material living conditions, but also many financial and behavioral outcomes.
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Theoretical Framework (1)• Given the unique features of marriage in North Africa, Assaad and Kraft
(2014a) introduced a unifying framework to understand the economics of marriage in the region.
• Assaad and Kraft (2014a) draw on Becker’s idea of how individuals’ characteristics affect their marriage outcomes, and make use of the game theory understanding of how marriage contracts are negotiated.
• Accordingly this framework considered marriage outcomes as the result of a bargaining process between families.
• Outcomes of bargaining process include age at marriage, consanguinity, nuclear residence, total costs of marriage, bride side share of costs and the age difference between the bride and groom.
• Ultimately, those outcomes are affected by bargaining power before marriage, ability to pay, and the bride and groom’s characteristics as well as those of their families.
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Theoretical Framework (2)
• In the women empowerment literature, the determinants of women’s bargaining power after marriage include:
– Control over material resources (such as land, livestock, and having labor earnings),
– human assets (such as education and health), – socio-demographic characteristics (age, family size, family structure, etc.),– psychological characteristics (beliefs about self-efficacy),– social norms (both formal and informal),– marriage characteristics (nuclear residence, consanguinity, marriage costs,
age gap and education gap).
• This paper combines the women empowerment literature and the framework introduced by Assaad and Kraft (2014a) to examine how those marriage outcomes would shape females bargaining power after marriage.
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Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Gaps and Objectives. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Gaps and Objectives (1)
• Despite the fact that marriage is the largest transaction and most important contract undertaken by young North African men and women, there has been very little rigorous research on the economics of marriage in the region.
• According to our review of that literature, the majority of those papers focused on examining the determinants of different marriage outcomes, while bargaining power within marriage – main interest of the current study-was the focus of very limited number of studies.
• As far as the authors are aware, Salem (2011) is the only study that directly tackled bargaining power after marriage within the economics of marriage literature for the North African region.
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• This paper addresses the determinants of women’s bargaining power after marriage, using a more rigorous methodology in regards to controlling for pre-marital bargaining.
• More precisely the paper studies the relationship between women’s bargaining power within her household after marriage and her pre-marital power (reflected by divorce payment, the jewelry she received from her husband in addition to her husband characteristics).
• The paper allows for comparative work by using recent data sets for three of the MENA countries: Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia.
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Gaps and Objectives (2)
Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Gaps and Objectives. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Methodology (1)• Multiple Index Multiple Causes (MIMIC) Model is estimated.
• MIMIC model allows exploring the linkages between the indicators (DI) of a given latent variable “Post- Marriage Empowerment” (PME*) and a number of its possible causes.
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PME*
Individual CharacteristicsParents Characteristics
Husband Characteristics
Pre- Marriage bargaining Power
(Marriage Characteristics)
DI1: making large household purchases?
DI2: making household purchases for daily needs?
DI3: food should be cooked each day?
DI4: getting medical treatment or advice for yourself?
DI5: buying clothes for yourself?
The Indicators:
•Dii: is a set of five decision making questions for each individual i.
•Each question takes several answers ranging from taking the decision alone (DIi=4) to not participating in the decision making at all (DIi=1).
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Methodology (2)
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Causes (regressors) include:•Individual’s characteristics, such as her age, her age at marriage, her education
• Her parents’ education and employment status.
•Husband characteristics: Age difference, education difference and employment status.
•Marriage contract characteristics, that are outcomes of her bargaining power before marriage. Those include:
- dowry and bride price (mahr),- payment upon divorce (mo'akhar) - bride list (ayma) written upon marriage - Jewelry (shabka) - marriage living arrangements (living alone or with someone else such
as her in laws or her parents)
Methodology (3)
Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Gaps and Objectives. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Data• The present research use the Labor Market Panel Surveys carried
out by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) for three countries, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.– Egypt ELMPs (2012), our sample includes 4453 women who has
been married since 2002 with an average age of around 26 years old and average age at marriage of 21.5 years old.
– Jordan JLMPs (2010) we have 1470 women married since 2000 with an average age of around 27 years old and average age at marriage of 21.8 years old.
– Tunisia TLMPs(2013), there are 1130 women married since 1996 with an average age of 34 years old and average age at marriage 25.80
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Distribution of the sample according to answers of the decision questions
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Egypt
Majority of women take the daily minor decisions such as daily purchases or food to be cooked alone or with her husband. While for major decisions such as large households purchase majority mainly takes the decision with husbands, or are not involved at all.
Distribution of the sample according to answers of the decision questions
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Jordan Tunisia
For Jordan and Tunisia, most of the respondent takes the decision with their husband. With the exception of the daily cooking and for buying clothes to herself, where the majority takes the decision alone.
Sample Distribution according to marriage contract outcome (%)
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Egypt Jordan TunisiaAre you living alone with your husband? No 31.81 22.11 n.a.Yes 68.19 77.89 n.a.Did you write Ayma?
No 19.43 n.a. n.a.
Yes 80.57 n.a. n.a.Bride Price
No 74.16 18.16 93.29
Yes 25.84 81.84 6.71Divorce Payment
No 17.29 2.79 n.a.
Yes 82.71 97.21 n.a.Jewelry
No 3.99 29.25 93.47
Yes 96.01 70.75 6.53
Outline
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1. Introduction.2. Gaps and Objectives. 3. Methodology.4. Data Sources.5. Main Findings.
Main Findings
•The impacts of the individual, parents, husband and marriage characteristics on the “post marriage Empowerment” significantly differ among the three countries.
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Main Findings: Individual characteristics
•Individual characteristics play a relatively important role in Jordan and Tunisia as compared to Egypt.
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VARIABLES Egypt Jordan Tunisia
Age Not sig. +*** +***
Age sq. Not sig. Not sig. _**
Age at first marriage _** _*** Not sig.
Education Not sig. +*** Not sig.
Rural areas _*** Not sig. _***
Main Findings: Parents characteristics
• Parents education and employment turned out to have no significant impact on the respondent decision making power after marriage in Jordan and Tunisia.
• For Egypt the picture is different: the effect is more pronounced.
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VARIABLES Egypt Jordan Tunisia
Father’s Education (illiterate)
+*** read & write+*** Basic
Not sig Not sig
Father’s Employment (wage worker)
-* unpaid-*** no job
Not sig. Not sig
Mother’s Education (illiterate)
Not sig. Not sig Not sig.
Mother’s Employment (nojob)
+*** self employed +*** unpaid worker
Not sig Not sig.
Main Findings: Husband’s characteristics
• Husband characteristics had a more significant impact in Tunisia as compared to the other two countries specially Jordan.
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VARIABLES Egypt Jordan Tunisia
Age gap (same) Not sig Not sig Not sig
Education gap (same) Not sig Not sig. _** higher
Employment (Public wage worker)
+ ** formal private Not sig _* unemployed
Main Findings: Marriage characteristics• Marriage characteristics play an important role in shaping women decision-making power after marriage in Egypt and Jordan but with
different direction for some characteristics.• While for Tunisia, marriage characteristics have a less pronounced impact.
+***
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VARIABLES Egypt Jordan Tunisia
living alone with husband + *** + ** n.a.
Bride List (Ayma) +*** n.a. n.a.
Bride Price (Mahr) - *** +* Not sig.
Divorce Payment (Moakhar) +*** +* n.a.
Jewelry (Shabka) +** -** Not sig.
Two marriages (Reference Married once)
n.a. n.a. Not sig.
Concluding Remarks
• There is considerable difference between the three countries in terms of determinates of post marriage decision-making power.
• Pre-marriage bargaining power is playing significant role in women’ post marital empowerment in Egypt and Jordan.
• It is mainly individual characteristics and husbands characteristics that affect women’s post marital empowerment in Tunisia.
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Concluding Remarks
• This could be due to the difference in culture and social context in Tunisia as compared to Jordan and Egypt.
• It is known that Tunisia is a unique case as compared to other MENA region for example men are not allowed to marry more than one woman.
• This result confirms the importance of norms, traditions and culture factors as causes that affect woman empowerment in general as well as her empowerment after marriage.
• a point that needs further investigation in future research.32
