In the name of health security, individual freedoms were constrained in an unprecedented way in many countries, democratic or authoritarian, all over the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the constraints have not been consistent across countries, which motivates this paper to examine the relevance of value preferences towards freedom or security in the society for COVID-19 policies. Based on data for 40 democratic and authoritarian countries, the analyses show that the variation in the stringency of COVID-19 policies can be explained by value preferences of the population only in autocracies. In democracies, however, we do not find such a relationship. Governments in democratic political systems, we argue, are responsive to their constitutions and face prosecution by the judiciary if they violate the law or provisions of the constitution, limiting their capacity to implement strong COVID-19 policies. Nevertheless, their COVID-19 policies restricted citizens’ freedoms and liberties, which means that these policies were rather not responsive to citizens’ preferences for freedom, democratic rights and liberties. By highlighting how autocracies respond to their citizens’ value preferences for security, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how autocracies might gain legitimacy in times of crises.

Members of the political elite have far-reaching influence on the overall society. In this paper, we analyse fertility patterns among the German political elite for two reasons: First, we learn more about the living circumstances of a subgroup that makes crucial decisions and could serve as a role model for the general population. Second, we gain insight into the association between social status and fertility patterns at the top tier of the status distribution. We collect biographical data from all high-rank politicians in Germany in 2006 and/or 2017, comprising 184 women and 353 men. We compare fertility patterns in this subgroup to the general population, as well as we differentiate the number of children by politicians’gender, region (eastern/western Germany), party affiliation, and other variables. Results show that, on average, male politicians have relatively many children: 2.0 in western Germany, and 2.2 in eastern Germany. Female politicians have very few children in western Germany (1.3) and relatively many in eastern Germany (1.9). The east-west gap between men and women is entirely driven by differences in childlessness. For men, the observation of high fertility in this high-status group could hint towards a positive association between social status and fertility at the top of the status distribution. For women, large east-west differences in this subgroup could mean that the association between social status and fertility at the top of the status distribution might be negative or positive, depending on macro-level characteristics such as gender norms and work-family reconciliation policies.

Women in Middle Eastern and North African countries continue to report low levels of agency, despite their increasing educational attainment and declining fertility rates. We address this paradox by considering how women’s agency is linked to parenthood in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia and how this association is moderated by their level of education. We study three dimensions of instrumental agency: involvement in decision-making, financial autonomy, and freedom of movement using data for married women aged 18–49 from the Integrated Labor Market Panel Surveys: Egypt 2012 (n = 7622), Jordan 2016 (n = 4550), Tunisia 2014 (n = 1480). Results from multivariate regression models of these different dimensions demonstrate that married women who are mothers generally exhibit higher levels of agency than their counterparts who are childless, though this does not hold for every dimension and the strength of the association between parenthood and agency differs by dimension and country. We find a notable exception to this pattern of positive association in the Egyptian sample: parenthood decreases agency among Egyptian women with post-secondary education. Our results suggest that parenthood may only increase women’s agency in settings with deeply entrenched patriarchal norms that imply little education for women.

Objective: This study investigates whether women’s agency changes with birth transitions in Egypt and if this change differs by education or rural vs. urban residence. Background: In the patriarchal context of Egypt, childbearing is almost universal and essential for women’s social position; therefore, it is a potentially relevant factor for agency. However, research on the relationship between childbirth and agency is rare, and little is known about the circumstances under which childbirth might increase agency. Method: Drawing on longitudinal data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (2006, 2012, 2018), this study uses fixed effects regression models to estimate the link between birth transitions and women’s agency. Results: The results show that the transition from having one child to having at least two children is positively associated with women's decision-making power but not their financial autonomy or freedom of movement. This positive relationship is stronger for low-educated women and those living in rural areas than for women with at least an intermediate education and those living in urban areas. Indeed, women living in urban areas have less agency after childbirth. Conclusion: Overall, the results indicate that birth transitions might affect agency, although not across all dimensions, and that the potential positive impact on agency is substantial only for women who are more restricted to the mother role and live in more patriarchal contexts.