To evaluate the potential human capital externalities of women's empowerment and more equitable Moudawana (personal status law) policies in the North Africa region, I use two countries as case studies, each with different Moudawana regimes. She came from a small village in the mountains and spoke a unique Arabic dialect, so we communicated in small bursts.
Introduction
Foreword: In the fall of 2015, I spent a semester studying in Meknes, Morocco, sharing an apartment with five other American students. These decisions, which seem common to Westerners, were only given to Nora and women like her in Morocco.
Literature Review
Effect of Policy on Gender Equity
As explained in the United Nations Development Report 2002, this is a particularly important issue in the MENA region (UNDP 2002). These codes of personal status legally limit a woman's influence in the family, often legally requiring a woman to obey her husband or other male guardian.
Gender Equity and Economic Growth
Therefore, an increase of three or more would indicate an increase in women's empowerment, while an increase of only one or two may not be sufficient to confirm such a link. Moreover, similar studies show that inequality in education can be directly linked to relatively lower economic growth (Klasen 2002).
Family Bargaining
Historically, microeconomic theory relied exclusively on the unit model of the household or family (Rode 2011). In this model, the household or family operates under one decision preference and maximizes the utility of the entire unit through the allocation of resources under an overall budgetary constraint (Samuelson 1956).
Moroccan and Egyptian Moudawana
Discussion of Country Level Statistics
Of these listed Arab countries in the MENA region that I can potentially use for my difference-in-difference analysis, only three other countries have roughly similar scores to Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia. However, I believe that the comparison in Morocco and Egypt is close enough that it is more useful to compare them in difference-in-difference analysis than to compare Morocco alone, as I have shown that there is no other suitable match in the MENA- region is not.
Morocco
Inequality is also still significantly higher in Morocco than in Egypt, where the Moroccan tax law benefits the rich urban population at the expense of the rural poor. The Moroccan Moudawana reform of 2004, as well as the success of the larger Moroccan feminist movement, is unparalleled in the modern Arab world. Far from accepting the demands of the Sisters of Purity, the first Moudawana reflected the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, subject to a conservative interpretation of the Qur'an.
When King Hassan II died in 1999 and King Mohamed VI, who was rumored to have more "modern" or relatively liberal views, ascended the throne, the efforts of the women's movement and the international community were revived (Sadiqi 2010) . The sheer amount of support and dissent shows how this was (and remains) a controversial social issue facing the international community and much of Moroccan society. The efforts of the Moroccan women's movement and the international development community culminated in the Moudawana Reform of 2004, discussed in detail in section r.
The new Mudawwana has jettisoned the patriarchal model of the family,” argues Margot Badran, a leading scholar and historian of the Middle East and gender, “which is said to be the authentic Islamic model of the family, in favor of an egalitarian family model based on Shar'ia.
Egypt
Moroccan Moudawana Reform
In the year 1993, Morocco ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was a remarkable step forward. The women's movement as well as the push from the international community through CEDAW resulted in very minor and largely insignificant reform by King Hassan II, who was notorious for his conservative views and corruption among his administration (Zvam 2007). However, the women's movement considered this a small success because it meant that change in Moudawana was possible.
Across the globe, this reform is hailed as a victory for women that is unique in the Arab world. While state feminism created and organized a public system of patriarchy, it did not challenge the personal and familial views of women's dependence on men that were institutionalized by personal status laws and the political system." (1992, p. 233). Scholar Fatima Harrak writes, that the reformed Moroccan Moudawana "constitutes a landmark in the history of Moroccan and Arab women's struggle for equality" (Harrak 2011, web).
This is strongly supported in the family negotiation literature mentioned earlier on similar cases in Kenya, the United Kingdom and Mexico.
Methodology
These estimates by gender of the discussed model can be found in the appendix and will be briefly discussed in the results section. Because of the observed potential for the independent variables to be dependent on gender, it is necessary to run a full unrestricted model that allows the independent variables to interact with gender. Post*Morocco This is the treatment variable; is equal to 1 if the responses were recorded after the time of the reform in Morocco and 0 otherwise.
Post is equal to 1 if the response was recorded after the time of the reform, and 0 otherwise. Morocco Equals 1 if the subject resides in Morocco and 0 otherwise. Wealth Index A scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the poorest and 5 being the richest. Urbanity Equals 1 if the respondent lives in a major urban area and 0. Post*Morocco*Female This is whether the treatment variable is related to gender; equals 1 if the responses were recorded after the time of the reform in Morocco and the respondent is female, otherwise 0 Post*Female Equals 1 if the response was recorded after the time.
Urbanity*Female is 1 if the respondent lives in a large urban area and is female and 0 otherwise.
Data
Data Analysis Results
Regression Results
Heteroscedasticity violates the fifth fundamental assumption of multiple linear regression, the homoscedasticity assumption, namely that the variance is constant or, more precisely, “…the error u [𝜀 in this model] has the same variance given any value of the explanatory variables” (Wooldridge 2013, p. 62). For men, this value is 1,830, which means that for men, on average, the treatment is associated with an increase of 1,830 years of education. For women, the value for this coefficient is 1.601, which means that the treatment is the same for women.
I tested the hypothesis that there is a significant treatment effect; specifically, the null hypothesis is that 𝛽. In addition, I used an F-test to test whether the treatment effect is gender dependent. We can therefore conclude that the treatment coefficients for men and women are not statistically significantly different.
Since this study period takes place in the relatively short period directly after the reform, one possible explanation for the gender-independent treatment effect is that the increased relative return on investment in girls' education as an incentive for more education is not present.
Discussion of Descriptive Statistics
Furthermore, of women aged 15-49, only 41.86% decided for themselves whether they could look for or stay in paid work. 11.77% of women answered that their fathers alone were responsible for their work choices and 25.95% of spouses alone. I could not confirm this with survey data, but the decline in fertility rates over time at the national level is also associated with an increase in women's empowerment.
These figures suggest that Moudawana abstinence and enforcement are still subject to fairly strict cultural patriarchal norms. Although it appears through this analysis that the Moudawana reform has given women increased bargaining power, it is also likely that complete fairness in decision-making within the family is far from achieved.
Limitations
In addition, it is impossible to eliminate the possibility that other factors in Morocco and Egypt are at play. Because difference-in-differences analysis relies on the assumption that the two cases are identical except for one crucial change, differences between Morocco and Egypt may certainly influence this study. Both of these factors are likely to bias the analysis in favor of increased education in Morocco.
I tried to find a way to determine which respondents were above or below the poverty line, but this was not possible with the available data. It would be useful in future research to find a way to include measures of poverty and fertility in this analysis.
Barriers to Implementation/ Realization
As recognized, factors influencing educational attainment may include Morocco's demographic transition and higher relative poverty reduction. Moreover, it is difficult for women, especially illiterate women, to be informed about the Moudawana (Hanafi 2013). Furthermore, as discussed, women's education levels were still much lower on average than men's at the end of this study.
For women to achieve empowerment in society, this educational gap must continue to improve. For these reasons, as supported by the descriptive statistics, I believe that Morocco still has room to improve gender equality in both the public and private spheres. However, the model demonstrates that the reform may have helped bring about significant improvements, even with its shortcomings.
Conclusion
Works Cited
34; Power Gains: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana." Journal of Policy Economy 116, No. 34; A Proposed Explanation of Fertility Gap Differences by Socioeconomic Status and Modernity: The Case of Egypt." Population Studies. 34; Al-Harakah Al-Nissa'Iyah: The Women's Movement and Political Participation in Modern Egypt." International Women's Studies Forum, Vol.
Evidence from multiple countries on the impact of gender inequality in education on economic development." The World Bank Economic Review. 34; Some Social Requirements for Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. " American Political Science Review 53, part 1. 34; Refiguration of Citizenship: Research Perspectives on Gender Justice in the Latin American and Caribbean Region." Gender Justice, Citizenship and Development.
34; Literature Review: Non-Unitary Models of the Household (Theory and Evidence).” University of California, Santa Barbara.
Appendix
Regressions Separated By Gender
