What empowers Egyptian women: resources versus social constrains?

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to tackle an important question related to women’s economic empowerment in highly patriarchal societies like Egypt. The paper discusses individual, household, wealth and location factors determining women empowerment, as measured by two dimensions: decision-making power and mobility. Design/methodology/approach Using the “Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey” (ELMPS) 2012, a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model was estimated to study the main economic resources and social constraints that determine women empowerment as measured by the power of women over household decisions and her freedom of movement in Egypt. Findings Three key messages could be delivered. First, women’s own economic resources as captured by her employment status are an important source of her empowerment. Second, contrary to theoretical prediction education is not playing its expected role in developing awareness and transforming ideas concerning gender roles in Egypt. Third, the importance of social local context is fundamental for Egyptian women empowerment. Originality/value This study is an attempt to address some of the gaps in the literature for the Egyptian case, where there is a lack in rigorous studies measuring women empowerment and examining its determinates. This is done by first, tackling multiple dimension of women’s empowerment, decision-making inside households and freedom of mobility. Second, using MIMIC model, which is a modeling approach that allows for studying the relations between several causes of a given latent variable, such as “Empowerment” in our case, and a number of its possible indicators, without a directly observable measure of the latent variable. Third, using the most recent set of data; the ELMPS 2012 which has a special focus on women’s resources and agency that permits greater content validity of the multidimensional setup. Forth, the macro level differences in women’s status are tackled through using location dummy variables. Finally, given the important correlation between wealth level and women empowerment, the paper is considered a first attempt to analyze such impact by including a variable that captures the wealth level of the woman’s household as one determinant of empowerment.

Empowerment as a Mediator between Education and Reproductive Health Care in Egypt: The Impact of Poverty and Residence

“…Mainuddin et al (2015), in a study on Bangladesh, found that women's empowerment correlated with their husbands' education levels. That result differs from (Nazier & Ramadan, 2018), in his study on Egyptian women, in that all education categories, as compared to the illiterate category, did not have a significant effect on empowerment in its two dimensions, decisions and mobility. He described that result as surprising and referred it to the education system in Egypt, which could not change the intellectual system of its community members to achieve gender equality.…”

“…As for the effect of education on empowerment, studies have shown that women's empowerment is significantly related to the husbands' education levels (Alishah et al, 2019;Mainuddin, Begum, Rawal, Islam, & Islam, 2015;Samari, 2019), whereas (Alishah et al, 2019;Nazier & Ramadan, 2018) did not show a significant correlation between women's empowerment and their education levels, but it showed significance in (Samari, 2019).…”

Women’s empowerment in Egypt: the reliability of a complex construct

“…While there are many factors that can shape women's agency, studies demonstrate that individual characteristics like age, marital status, women's age at marriage, education, and employment are important determinants of agency. [38][39][40][41][42] Education and employment give women a greater sense of personal control. In Egypt, later age at marriage provides more opportunity for education, employment, and participation in the choice of a husband, which can enhance women's negotiating power within the households.…”

Explaining the MENA paradox: Rising educational attainment yet stagnant female labor force participation

“…Previous research has shown that different types of work are differentially accessible to women in MENA countries depending on their education and stage in life (Nazier and Ramadan 2018;Hendy 2015bHendy , 2011Hendy , 2020Assaad andEl-Hamidi 2001, 2009;Assaad, Hendy, and Yassine 2014). Specifically, less educated women tend to have limited access to wage work and are often confined to home-based selfemployment or unpaid family work, if they participate in the labor force at all.…”