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Women’s Empowerment Across the Life Cycle and Generations: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

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  • Arestoff, Florence
  • Djemai, Elodie

Abstract

Does female empowerment evolve over the life cycle, and has it changed across generations? We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys covering a sample of about 191,000 adult women to evaluate the age, period and cohort effects regarding individual attitudes to marital violence. Pseudo-panel data are constructed from repeated cross-sections from five African countries in the 2000s. The estimates show that, over the life cycle, women tend to think that marital violence is less and less justifiable, and that younger cohorts are less likely than older cohorts to view marital violence as justifiable, even controlling for education.

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  • Arestoff, Florence & Djemai, Elodie, 2016. "Women’s Empowerment Across the Life Cycle and Generations: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-87.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:87:y:2016:i:c:p:70-87
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.06.002
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    2. Azam, Jean-Paul & Djemaï, Elodie, 2019. "Matching, cooperation and HIV in the couple," TSE Working Papers 19-991, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    3. Orsola Torrisi, 2021. "The long echo of war. Early-life exposure to armed conflict and female experiences of intimate partner violence," HiCN Working Papers 358, Households in Conflict Network.
    4. Huis, Marloes & Lensink, Robert & Vu, Nhung & Hansen, Nina, 2019. "Impacts of the Gender and Entrepreneurship Together Ahead (GET Ahead) training on empowerment of female microfinance borrowers in Northern Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 46-61.
    5. Delprato, Marcos & Akyeampong, Kwame & Dunne, Máiréad, 2017. "Intergenerational Education Effects of Early Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 173-192.
    6. Nathalie Greenan & Majda Seghir, 2017. "Measuring Vulnerability to Adverse Working Conditions: Evidence from European Countries [Mesurer la vulnérabilité à la dégradation des conditions de travail dans les pays européens]," Working Papers hal-02172377, HAL.
    7. Ulugbek Aminjonov & Olivier Bargain & Maira Colacce & Luca Tiberti, 2022. "Culture, Intra-household Distribution and Individual Poverty," Working Papers - Economics wp2022_21.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    8. Perelli, Chiara & Cacchiarelli, Luca & Peveri, Valentina & Branca, Giacomo, 2024. "Gender equality and sustainable development: A cross-country study on women's contribution to the adoption of the climate-smart agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    9. Rumman Khan, 2021. "Assessing Sampling Error in Pseudo‐Panel Models," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 742-769, June.
    10. Giulia La Mattina & Olga N. Shemyakina, 2017. "Domestic Violence and Childhood Exposure to Armed Conflict: Attitudes and Experiences," HiCN Working Papers 255, Households in Conflict Network.
    11. Rumman Khan, 2018. "Assessing cohort aggregation to minimise bias in pseudo-panels," Discussion Papers 2018-01, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    empowerment; marital violence; age-period-cohort; pseudo-panel; Sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

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