Empowerment is a community affair : community level determinants of married women’s empowerment in Egypt
Joint Authors
Asad, Raji
Nazir, Hanan
Ramadan, Rasha
Source
Economic Research Forum : Working Paper Series
Issue
Vol. 2015, Issue 901-975 (31 Dec. 2015), pp.1-26, 26 p.
Publisher
Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries Iran and Turkey
Publication Date
2015-12-31
Country of Publication
Egypt
No. of Pages
26
Main Subjects
Abstract EN
This paper examines the contextual and community-level determinants of multidimensional women’s empowerment in Egypt, while accounting for the usual individual and household level factors typically included in studies of women’s empowerment.
The paper analyzes two dimensions of women’s empowerment: the decision-making and the mobility dimensions by means of two indices constructed from various survey questions relating to these dimensions.
We use data from the Population Census of 2006 and the Demographic Health Survey of 2008 to construct community and governorate-level contextual variables to complement the individual-level data we obtain from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey of 2012 (ELMPS 2012).
In line with the literature, the determinants that are relevant to the decision-making and mobility dimensions of women’s empowerment turned out to be quite different, confirming that “empowerment” is a multi- dimensional phenomenon, with women relatively empowered in some aspects of their lives but not in others.
Moreover, our results show that context plays an important role in determining women’s empowerment in Egypt after controlling for a variety of individual and household-level characteristics.
These results highlight the importance of viewing women’s empowerment, and hence development as social and normative transformations rather than as just resulting from shifts in individual conditions, attitudes and behaviors.
Thus, empowering Egyptian women will require changing community norms and values about gender relations rather than simply providing greater educational and employment opportunities for women.
JEL Classifications: C22, J16, J12, J60
American Psychological Association (APA)
Asad, Raji& Nazir, Hanan& Ramadan, Rasha. 2015. Empowerment is a community affair : community level determinants of married women’s empowerment in Egypt. Economic Research Forum : Working Paper Series،Vol. 2015, no. 901-975, pp.1-26.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-627496
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Asad, Raji…[et al.]. Empowerment is a community affair : community level determinants of married women’s empowerment in Egypt. Economic Research Forum : Working Paper Series No. 901-975 (Dec. 2015), pp.1-26.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-627496
American Medical Association (AMA)
Asad, Raji& Nazir, Hanan& Ramadan, Rasha. Empowerment is a community affair : community level determinants of married women’s empowerment in Egypt. Economic Research Forum : Working Paper Series. 2015. Vol. 2015, no. 901-975, pp.1-26.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-627496
Data Type
Journal Articles
Language
English
Notes
Includes appendix : p. 20-26
Record ID
BIM-627496