Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 | 19 | IS WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT A COMMUNITY AFFAIR? COMMUNITY LEVEL APPLICATION ON EGYPTIAN MARRIED WOMEN HANAN NAZIER Faculty of Economics and Politicas Sciences, Cairo University, Egyipt RACHA RAMADAN Faculty of Economics and Politicas Sciences, Cairo University, Egyipt This paper examines the community-level determinants of women’s empowerment in Egypt, while accounting for the in- dividual and household level factors. The paper analyzes two di- mensions of women’s empowerment; the decision-making and the mobility dimensions using a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes Models. Using the Population Census data of 2006 and the Demographic Health Survey of 2008 in addition to the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey of 2012 (ELMPS 2012); we found that the determinants of decision-making and mobil- ity dimensions of women’s empowerment are quite different, confirming that “empowerment” is a multi- dimensional phe- nomenon. Moreover, our results show that social context and the characteristics of the governorate where women live play 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 view- ing women’s empowerment, and hence development as social and normative transformations rather than as just resulting from shifts in individual conditions, attitudes and behaviors. Key words: Women’s empowerment, decision-making, mobility, social context, MIMIC, Egypt INTRODUCTION | 20 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 “Empowerment is the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make choice acquire such ability” (SIDA Studies- Discussion Women’s Empowerment). Empowerment as a concept is relevant to any disadvantaged or socially excluded groups, however, we focus on women due to the fact that women are a category of individuals that overlaps with virtually all oth- er social groups. Additionally, women empowerment is the ba- sis of intrahousehold relations and decision-making and is thus critical to many, if not most, development outcomes. Women empowerment is not only one of the Sustainable Development Goals, but it is a necessary condition for achieving other goals as eradicating poverty and ensuring food security. Women em- powerment determines the extent to which children gain access to education and health care, whether they can acquire contra- ceptive information and have the freedom to act on their fertil- ity preferences, among many other actions that are central to achieving desirable development outcomes (Dyson and Moore 1983; World Bank 2001; Mason and Smith 2003). Theoretically it has been hypothesized that determinants of empowerment include individual level measures, which in- cluded control over material resources (such as land, livestock, and having labor earnings), human assets (such as education and health), socio-demographic characteristics (age, family size, family structure, etc.) and psychological characteristics (beliefs about self-efficacy). More recently there is an emerging interest in social context as a main factor affecting women empower- ment. Women’s position and degree of empowerment are be- lieved to be defined by gender roles and gender relations in socie- ty. Gender represents not just the biological sex of an individual, but also the ideological or normative systems that defines dif- ferent roles, rights, and obligations that are attached by society to individuals born with male or female sex characteristics. In this view, women are a “class” in the (two-class) gender strat- ification system, a system that is governed by shared norms and values (Smith 1989). These ideological systems set prescriptions about many fundamental principles of social life, which defines the social context, for example, how to organize families, how to allocate wealth among different groups or individuals, and how to | 21 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 organize relations between males and females. In this view, the perceptions, tastes and choices of individual decision- makers are strongly influenced by the nature of the ideological or normative systems to which they belong (Mason and Smith 2003). Hence, individual behavior is strongly influenced by norms and values at community level. This social context has important consequences for the actions of women and hence their empow- erment. For example, individual mobility in a community where few women can leave the house freely has different implications than women’s movement in a community where many women can move freely (Folaranmi 2013). Accordingly understanding the social context and focusing on the rights; obligations and resources granted to women versus men under different social contexts —not just the individual and household characteris- tics of women—is critical for analyzing women empowerment (Mason and Smith 2003). As explained by Nazier and Ramadan (2018) women’s em- powerment is a dynamic process of different dimensions. These dimensions include economic, socio-cultural, familial/interper- sonal, legal, political and psychological. There is nothing to guar- antee that when women have high levels of empowerment in one dimension, they will also have high levels on other dimen- sions (Mason and Smith 2003). Dimensions including, but not limited to, freedom of movement, access to financial and non - financial resources, decision making autonomy, gender atti- tudes, freedom from fear and oppression, and equality in her re- lationship with her partner are arguably important and distinct aspects of a women’s position in relation to men, other family members and other women within her household (Ghuman et al 2004). It is important to recognize this multidimensional aspect of women empowerment because it renders many generaliza- tions, as it is impossible to understand and capture the influence of women’s status through one single measure. This highlights the importance of studies distinguishing different dimensions of women’s empowerment if we wish to understand possible causes of social or economic change (Mason and Smith 2003). In Egypt, gender gap is almost closed and even reversed in primary education, however gender contributes to more than | 22 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 20% to inequality of opportunity in secondary completion rate (UN-ESCWA and ERF, 2019). Additionally, the improvement of women’s years of education was not translated into an increase in women’s access to economic activities. According to Krafft and Kettle (2019); only 20 % of women with intermediate education level participated in the labor market in 2018. Women’s employ- ment rate decreased to 17% in 2018 compared to 72% for men. And women’s unemployment rate is almost four times men’s unemployment rate with 4.9% and 19.5% in 2018, respectively. Equal access to education and economic opportunities, in addition to other social and cultural factors in such a patriar- chal society as Egypt, are main drivers for women empower- ment, which is in turn a necessary condition for development. However, evidence- based research tackling women empower- ment in Egypt is scarce (Nazir and Ramadan, 2018). A common shortcoming of most of the previous studies on women empowerment in Egypt is ignoring the social context and its effect on women empowerment (Durrant and Sathar 2000; Roushdy 2004). Another issue is that most of the studies tackled only one dimension of empowerment mainly economic empowerment. Hence, this research is an attempt to overcome these gaps. This is done by first illustrating the degree to which women’s empowerment in Egypt differs by social context and the extent to which these contextual differences remain after we control for personal and household-level characteristics. Second, as social context may allocate power to women in some domains while denying them power in others and different as- pects of women’s empowerment do not always move together; we illustrate the multi-dimensional nature of women’s empow- erment by tackling two dimensions; decision-making power inside their households and freedom of movement outside the household. Third, we use the Multiple Index Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model that allows avoiding confusing causes and ef- fects of empowerment. MIMIC model allows exploring the link- ages between the direct measures of empowerment - known as indicators- and its different causes. In this context, this paper studies the main socio-economic drivers at the individual, household and community level of | 23 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 women empowerment in Egypt. More precisely, the paper ana- lyzes the community characteristics and contextual variables that determine the empowerment of Egyptian women, in ad- dition to individual and household characteristics, along two dimensions; decision-making and mobility. The analysis is con- ducted using data on individual and households’ characteristics of women from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) of 2012 and contextual variables from the Egyptian Population Census of 2006 and the Demographic and Health Survey of 2008. The paper is organized as follows; the first section reviewed the related literature. Section 2 described the methodology. Section 3 presented the data used in the regression. The esti- mated results were presented in section 4 and finally section 5 concludes. LITERATURE REVIEW Most of the empirical analyses of the determinants of women’s empowerment focused on the individual and household level. This concentration at the individual/household level could be due to the importance of the household to gender relations and hence empowerment. In addition, operationalizing different components of women’s empowerment in a concrete manner is more feasible at the household level rather than at larger levels of aggregation (Malhotra et al. 2002). The majority of these studies used direct measures of empowerment to determine the impact of different individual and socio demographic variables, such as age, marital status, education, employment, asset ownership, ethnicity, position within the household and number of chil- dren, on different aspects of women’s empowerment (Hashemi et al. 1996; Malhotra and Mather 1997; Mason 1998; Zaman 1999; Jejeebhoy 2000; Mason and Smith 2000; Jejeebhoy and Sathra 2001; Parveen and Leonhauser 2004; Kamal and Zunaid 2006; Gupta and Yesudian 2006; Allendorf 2007; Anderson and Eswaran 2009; Khan and Awan 2011; Vanghese 2011). Only a few recent studies tried to take social context into consideration by combining community and individual level | 24 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 variation in a single analysis. Indeed, these studies have found strong evidence of powerful effects of social context on women empowerment. However, the relative importance of each con- textual factor differs for different dimensions of empowerment and social contexts (Samman and Santos 2009). Moreover, it has been shown that social context has indirect and direct ef- fects on women’s empowerment. Country and community of residence predict women’s domestic empowerment better than their personal socioeconomic and demographic traits (Mason and Smith 2000). Theoretically relevant social contexts can be distinguished on three levels. First, the nation-state which enforces the gender regimes embodied in legal systems, judicial precedent, religious discourse and public policy. Second, the local geographic com- munity, which is the context where much of the day-to-day in- terpretation of social norms and informal sanctioning of those who violate them occurs. Third, communities of identity such as religious or ethnic communities (Mason and Smith 2003). Accordingly, social context as a determinant of women empow- erment is analysed in the empirical literature on three levels; at the macro level by comparing different nations; at the com- munity level inside a single country by analysing determinants of women’s empowerment in different geographical areas and finally by analysing determinants of women’s empowerment depending on the religious or ethnic group they belong to. Generally, there are two ways through which social context was operationalized; first by using dummy variables for the various geographic or identity group being investigated and second, by using community-level characteristics measured at the geo- graphic level being analysed. Mason and Smith (1999) use data for 56 communities in five Asian countries (Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines) to measure the effect of social context proxied by dummies for religion and region on women’s empowerment, controlling for women’s individual and household character- istics, such as land assets, participation in waged work, wife’s rank relative to husband. She operationalized women’s empow- erment as their say in household expenditure decision-making. | 25 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 The results revealed that country and community of residence predict women’s domestic empowerment better than their per- sonal socioeconomic and demographic traits. 1 Mason and Smith (2003) try to answer two main questions: whether community or individual characteristics are better predictors of women’s empowerment, and whether different dimensions of empow- erment are similarly related to community or individual traits. They analyze four measures of married women’s empower- ment in the domestic sphere in 56 communities from the same five Asian countries as in the previous study (India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand) however using differ - ent proxies for social context. First, they examine variation in women’s empowerment according to country and community dummies together with personal and household characteristics in multivariate models. Second, they capture context by five community-level measures computed as the mean of response to each of five gender-role attitude questions across women in each community. The analysis shows that, community is a far stronger predictor of women’s empowerment than are individ- ual traits. The relationship of both community and individual traits to different measures of empowerment varies, suggesting that empowerment is inherently a multi-dimensional phenom- enon, with women relatively empowered in some spheres but not in others. The studies by Jejeebhoy (2000) for Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Tamil Nadu India and Jejeebhoy and Sathar (2001) for the same two areas in India and Punjab Pakistan use dummy variables to account for social context, namely nationality, religion and region. They find that traditional sources of empowerment, namely, co-residence with mother in law, size of dowry, age, and number/gender of children, to be more important determinants of autonomy in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh than in Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, the only traditional factor that mattered was age. Education and work status predicted empowerment in all three sites but far more in Tamil Nadu than in UP and Punjab, 1 Similar results were reached in a previous study Mason (1998) for the same 5 countries. | 26 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 where only secondary education mattered. For variables reflect- ing context only region was important; they consider region to proxy the cultural context, specifically prevailing social institu- tions that condition gender roles. In Bangladesh, Parveen and Leonhäuser (2004) find that traditional socio-cultural norms have a strong negative effect on women’s empowerment, while formal and non-formal edu- cation have strong positive effects, in addition to information and media exposure and mobility. Kishor and Gupta (2004) document women’s empowerment as a whole and in each of 26 states in India. In general, they find that the average woman in India is disempowered absolutely as well as relatively to men, and that there has been little change in her empowerment over time. However, there is great variation in the level of women’s empowerment across the different states and across indicators, confirming the importance of context and the multidimension- al nature of women’s empowerment. Ghuman et al (2004) compared couple responses to survey items on the wife’s autonomy in various domains using data from 23 communities in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. They showed that the level of women’s autonomy depends on whether wives or husbands are respondents and that the response categories do not have the same cognitive or semantic meanings to men and women. Moreover, the disagree- ment between men and women varies across communities high- lighting the role of social context. As for the empirical literature, tackling determinants of women empowerment in Egypt, most of the existing studies focus on the individual-level measures as determinants of em- powerment (Kishor 1995; Khatab and Sakr 2009; Abdel Mowla 2009; Nazier and Ramadan 2018). Kishor (1995) used the 1988 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 1998 to exam- ine the effect of several modernization, economic, and cultural factors on three different direct measures of empowerment. First, the customary autonomy index used to measure the ex- tent to which women believe they should have a say in decision related to matters women traditionally would have control over – mainly family planning, children’s education and marriage. | 27 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Second, the noncustomary autonomy index that measures the extent to which women believe they should have decision- making power in general, and in areas outside their tradition- al roles, such as visits to relatives and the household budget. Finally, the realized autonomy index measuring the extent to which women perceive that they have decision-making power and freedom of movement. The determinants of empowerment used by this study included household characteristics (region and socio-economic index), individual characteristics (age, edu- cation, exposure to media, migration history, and employment status), husband characteristics (education and occupation) and cultural variables (religion, marriage pattern, post marital resi- dential arrangement and number of children by gender). Using ordered logit regression; the results showed that while most fac- tors have a similar impact on the indices of customary autonomy and noncustomary autonomy, they do not always have the same impact on the realized autonomy index. Modernization efforts that affect women’s individual characteristics, like women’s own education, affected women mostly by altering their views about women’s role in decision-making. While modernization efforts that affect the circumstances in which women live, such as the level of education of her husband, affect her realized level of autonomy most. The impact of employment on empowerment differed for each dimension. Realized autonomy is the only as- pect that is significantly affected by women work, irrespective of whether they control their earnings or not and whether they earn cash or not for the work they do. The other two dimen- sions as measures of perceptions about women’s roles is not af- fected by employment per se, but by access to, and control over, earnings derived from employment. Finally, only a few cultural variables affected any of the aspects of empowerment directly. Realized autonomy is lower among women who are Muslim, who live in large, households, who are remarried and who have greater number of children irrespective of the children’s gender. Khattab and Sakr (2009) use data from the Egypt Labor Market Survey of 2006 to investigate the determinants of wom- en empowerment in Egypt. This study focused on the economic dimension of women’s empowerment as measured indirectly by | 28 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 female participation in the labor market. It utilized a compara- tive description approach to analyse the effect on women’s eco- nomic empowerment of four different factors; women’s point of view on participating in the labour market, social values (husband and wife view of whether women should be allowed to work), work conditions (stability, duration, right to occupy leadership position) and women’s financial autonomy. The study found that higher unemployment rates, the longer duration of unemployment facing women, the lack of access to education, and social norms are the major factors that hamper economic empowerment of women in Egypt. Social norms were especially important and reflected in a separation and conflict between ac- cepting women work while refusing their financial autonomy. Such result highlights the shortcomings of indirect measures like labour force participation as a true reflection of empowerment. Similarly, Abdel Mowla (2009) uses the ELMPS 2006 to ex- amine the effect of the level and type of education on women economic empowerment in Egypt. Women economic empow- erment was proxied by two indirect measures: (1) economic participation; measured as female labour force participation, probability of exiting employment and the extent of job search behaviour; (2) economic opportunity; measured by wage work and escaping vulnerable employment, escaping low quality work and overcoming occupational segregation. It was found that education has a powerful impact on both measures of women’s economic empowerment in Egypt. Women are found to benefit more than men from higher education in terms of improving their labour market outcomes. Finally, Nazier and Ramadan (2018) study the different indi- vidual and socio-demographic characteristics that affect two di- mensions of women empowerment in Egypt; namely decision- making and mobility. The findings are in line with the literature; age, education, employment, poverty status, number of children and having an adult son appear as significant determinants of empowerment. Women’s empowerment is also significantly af- fected by the characteristics of the husbands and the fathers of the respondents. All of these determinants, except for own edu- cation, showed varying impact depending on the dimension of | 29 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 empowerment studied. Regional and governorate dummy vari- ables were found to be very significant in explaining Egyptian women empowerment. Most of the previous studies on women empowerment in Egypt focus mainly on individual and socio-demographic char- acteristics ignoring the social context and its effect on women empowerment (Durrant and Sathar 2000; Roushdy 2004). Moreover, the few studies that have considered the social con- text, included only community dummies rather than attempt to determine what it is about these groupings that affect empow- erment (Kishor 1995). Another issue is that most of the studies tackled only one dimension of empowerment mainly economic empowerment. Hence, this research is an attempt to overcome these gaps. We focused on the community-level determinants of married women’s empowerment in Egyptian households to capture the effect of social context, in addition to individual and socio-demographic characteristics. METHODOLOGY The Multiple Index Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model, intro- duced by Goldeberger (1972), is used to measure the impact of individual, households and community characteristics on women’s empowerment in Egypt. The advantage of us- ing a MIMIC model is that in a situation where there is no directly observable measure of a given status such as em- powerment here, it allows exploring the linkages between the indicators of this latent variable- empowerment- and its different causes (Rose and Speigel 2011; Huber 2013). As we are interested in two dimensions of empowerment; deci- sion-making power and mobility, the MIMIC model will be estimated twice using two sets of empowerment indicators. More precisely, the MIMIC model consists of estimating two sets of equations that are interdependent structural equations. First, the structural equations representing the latent variable, empowerment, as function of causal variables, say X 1 ,..., X k , such as individual, households and community characteristics (Rahman et al 2004) as follows: | 30 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 ! = 𝑓𝑓   𝑋𝑋 ! ! , … . . , 𝑋𝑋 !" , 𝜀𝜀 !   (1) As empowerment is a binary variable that takes value 1 a woman is considered empowered, 0 otherwise; the f(.) is a logit function and the stochastic error term follows logistic distri- bution. The causal variables (inputs) of empowerment, X’s, are the same for the decision-making power model and the mobil- ity model. These inputs include woman’s age in years (age) and its square (age2) to consider the non-linear effect of age. Other individual characteristics include her age at marriage, the differ- ence between her age and her husband’s age (age gap) and her education level. And to account for the effect of the woman’s position in the household on her empowerment, the model in- cludes variables indicating the status of the respondent if she is daughter in law or temporary head (if her husband is absent) or other status, compared to being the head’s spouse. In addition to a variable capturing the fact that her daughter in law is living with her. Moreover, the model includes variables capturing the share of boys in her children if she has ones and the number of other adults present in her households. The socio-economic status and background of both the re- spondent and her family is also expected to affect her empow- erment. This is captured in our model by using woman’s con- tribution to the costs associated with her marriage measured by her share and her family’s share in the marriage costs (share marriage cost). Moreover, two dummy variables are introduced to capture her parents’ education level; the first variable equals one if the parents have same level of education, while the second variable equals one if the mother have higher education level. Additionally, to consider the husband’s role in women’s empow- erment, woman’s husband education compared to her education and his employment status are included in the model. The model includes as well dummy variables for income quin- tiles based on wealth score. This later takes into consideration the durable goods available to the household. The poorest quin- tiles are considered as the reference category. In addition to a dummy variable equals one if she was born in rural areas. | 31 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Finally, the social context is captured by different context var- iables reflecting education, employment and the development level of the governorate where the respondents live in addition to variables capturing women’s self-esteem. The governorate education level is captured by the share of illiterate male among the governorate’s adult males. The share of female wageworkers among all wageworkers at the governorate level is included in the model as a proxy for the employment status of other females within the governorate where the respondent lives. The gover- norate’s development level is measured by the share of the pop- ulation who have access to public sewerage network. While for women’s self-esteem, it is captured through four variables. The first one reflected female’s perception of violence, as measured by the share of female, at the governorate level, who accepted that a man beat his wife whatever the reason is. The second variable is the share of women, at the governorate level, thinking that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) should continue. The third variable reflects the share of women at the governorate level who agrees that a working woman is not a good mother and finally those who agree that a woman should be financially autonomous. The second sets of equations are the indicators equations representing the indicator variables reflecting empowerment as follows: 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ! = 𝑔𝑔 ! 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 ! , 𝜇𝜇 !  (2)   (2) Two sets of empowerment indicators are used to reflect our two dimensions of empowerment. The first set of indicators con - cerns women decision-making power within her household; such as who takes the decision related to large purchase, food and her health. The second one tackles women’s ability to visit sites such as the local market, health center or fields outside the village with- out obtaining permission from other family members 2 . Hence, g i (.) function is ordered logit function as the indicators for the de- cision-making power dimension and for the mobility dimension 2 More details about the decision-making and mobility indicators are available in Appendix 1. | 32 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 take ordered values ranging from 4 to 1; where 4 means taking the decision alone and 1 means not participating in any decision. And the stochastic error term follow logistic distribution. DATA First, the data for the individual and household characteristics used in this paper is drawn from the Egyptian labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) for 2012. The ELMPS is carried out by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in cooperation with Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) since 1998. The ELMPS (2012) is the third round of this periodic longitudinal survey that tracks the labor market and the demographic characteristics of households and individ- uals interviewed in 2006, both individuals included in the ELMS (1998) and individuals added in 2006, as well as a refresher sam- ple of 2,000 new households to ensure that the data continues to be nationally representative, a total sample of 12,060 house- holds and 49,186 individuals. The ELMPS is considered a wide- ranging, nationally representative panel survey that covers top- ics such as parental background, education, housing, access to services, residential mobility, migration and remittances, time use, marriage patterns and costs, fertility, women’s decision making and empowerment, job dynamics, savings and borrow- ing behavior, the operation of household enterprises and farms, besides the usual focus on employment, unemployment and earnings in typical labor force surveys. Our research focuses on 8858 married women, in 8568 households, aged between 15 and 49 years old, with an average age of 31 years old. Concerning the distribution of the sam- ple over the six Egyptian regions; 16.77% of the sample lives in Great Cairo, Alexandria and Suez Canal, 10.99%, 13.50%, 30.45% and 28.29% lives in Urban lower, Urban Upper, Rural Lower and Rural Upper Egypt respectively. Finally, 58.94% of the sample lives in the rural areas. Regarding community varia- bles, which are the main interest of this paper, starting with ed- ucation at the governorate level, Port Said governorate had the lowest share of illiterate men (13% in average), while Beni-Suef | 33 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 had the highest share of illiterate men (47%) same as Fayoum amd Menia (Appendix 2) Employment at the community level was measured by the average shares of female wageworkers, among all wageworkers at the governorate level. This variable varies among the differ - ent governorates. The highest share is reached in Cairo and Port Said with 27% of all wageworkers being female while Qena wit- nesses the lowest share of 9% (Appendix 2). Access to sanitation facilities is considered an important measure for development level. In Egypt, only 39% of house- holds have access to public sewerage network (Appendix 2). This low average share of access to public sewerage network hides sig- nificant variations among the different governorates. For some poor governorates such as, Menia, Assiut and Qena, this share is lower than 15% of the households. While this share exceeds the 80% for the metropolitan governorates (Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez) Second, variables reflecting women’s self-esteem are drawn from the 2008 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 3 and ELMPS 2006. The 2008 EDHS is a nationally representa- tive sample of 16 527 ever-married women aged 15-49. It was undertaken to provide estimates for key population indicators including fertility, contraceptive use, infant and child mortality, immunization levels, maternal and child health, and nutrition. Moreover, it covered other health topics such as knowledge and awareness of avian influenza, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C; previ- ous history of hypertension, cardiovascular illness diabetes and liver disease; attitudes and behavior with respect to female cir- cumcision; health care cost and health insurance coverage (El Zanaty and Way, 2009). Several variables measuring gender role and women self-es- teem are used in this study. First, a variable reflecting women’s 3 The EDHS was conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Health by El- Zanaty and Associates. It is the ninth in a series of Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in Egypt as a part of the worldwide MEASURE DHS project, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). | 34 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 attitudes towards domestic violence; the average share of fe- males, who think that women should be beaten by their hus- bands for any of a range of specified reasons. Women were asked about if they think that a man should beat his wife for any of the following reasons: if she went outside without his permis- sion, neglected her kids, argued with him, refused to have sex with him, or burned food. Figure 1 shows the average share of females, who think that husbands should beat women for each of these reasons. Going out without his permission, came as first reason with 34% of women thinking that a woman should be beaten for this. Neglecting her kids came at the second level with 32% while only 10% think that a woman should be beaten if she burned food. On average, 42% of women think that a man should beat his wife whatever the reason is. Figure 1: The average share of women who think that women should be beaten by their husbands for different reasons 34%   32%   24%   17%   10%   0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   she goes out without his permission she neglects her kids she refuses to have sex with him she argues with him she burns food Reasons to be beaten Source: Computed by the authors from EDHS (2008) Second a variable measuring women attitudes towards Female Genital Cutting, traditionally known as “circumcision”. Circumcision is considered a fundamental violation of women and girls’ rights (WHO, 2008). Surprisingly, among our sample, an average of 52% and 71% of women in Egypt thought that this practice should continue, in urban and rural areas, respectively. This average rate is 63% all over Egypt. This share reached its maximum of 82% in Aswan as compared to a minimum of 28% in Port Said. Finally, the share of women agreeing that a workingwoman is not a good mother and share of women agreeing that a woman | 35 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 should be financially autonomous are used to reflect attitudes towards working women and women’s financial independence. Data revealed that the share of women agreeing that a working- woman is not a good mother is less than 10% in all Egyptian Governorates except in Menufia, Suhag and Luxor. Moreover, less than 30% of women in all governorates agree that a woman should be financially autonomous (Appendix 2). EMPIRICAL RESULTS Replacing equation (1) in (2) result in the reduced form of our MIMIC model that was estimated twice for the decision-making power and for the mobility dimensions. Both models were es- timated first using only the individual and households’ charac- teristics. Secondly, they were estimated using regional dummies in addition to the individual and households’ characteristics as regressors. The inclusion of regional dummy variables allows to consider the impact of living in any region in Egypt compared to living in Great Cairo. And a third version of the two models were estimated using governorate dummies instead of the region ones, in addition to the characteristics of the respondents and their households. The governorate dummies take into consider- ation if it is urban or rural areas. This later accounts for the vari- ation in decision-making power and mobility due to observed and unobserved community characteristics at the governorate urban/rural level 4 . The likelihood ratio test 5 is used to compare between the models. The results of the test show that the two first models are nested in the third one. Hence, the governorate, where the respondent lives, is a significant determinant that explains im- portant part of the variation of women’s empowerment 6 . 4 The Estimated parameters of the first three models, for decision-making power and mobility are available upon request. 5 The output of the Likelihood Ratio test is presented in Appendix 3. 6 The three last models with region dummies, governorates urban/rural dummies and community variables are estimated without clustering to be able to use the likelihood ratio test. | 36 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Table 1: Likelihood Values Likelihood Value (1) (2) (3) (4) DI -42569.21 -42418.21 -41864.70 -42245.50 MI -40509.22 -40440.95 -40123.51 -40339.85 Source: Computed by the authors based on regression results. The third model with governorate rural/urban dummies al- lows answering our question of interest. The results confirm the important effect of communities, where women live, on both dimensions of empowerment. Most of the governorate urban\ rural dummies had a significant impact on empowerment. The results show that the governorate that had the largest negative effect on both dimensions of empowerment is rural Sohag com- pared to Great Cairo. While living in urban Beni-Suef had the greater positive effect on the decision-making power of women living there compared to women living in Great Cairo. For mo- bility; living in urban Dakahlia had the largest positive effect compared to Great Cairo. Finally, the decision-making power model and the mobility model were estimated using community characteristics, in ad- dition to the individual and household’s characteristics. This allows tackling the effect of specific characteristics, such as education level, employment and development of the gover- norates on the respondents’ empowerment. According to the decision-making power model, our latent variable empower- ment had significant (p < 0.01) factor loadings on all five deci- sion-making power indicators, which was equal to or exceeding 1.377. Similarly, empowerment had significant factor loadings equal to or exceeding 1.969 on all four mobility indicators (Appendix 4). | 37 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Results of the last version of the two models in which we are interested are displayed in Table 2. 7 Two main conclusions could be driven. First, the significance of our community characteris- tics varied according to the dimension tackled; decision making power or mobility. Second, the magnitude of the effect of the community level variables -especially those that are significant- is much more important than the effect of the individual and the household level variables. Hence, to answer our research question; community charac- teristics and social context play a significant role in empower- ing Egyptian women. Women living in governorates with higher share of female wageworker among all wageworkers are more likely to be empowered in both the decision-making and mobil- ity models. Surprisingly, average educational level at the gover- norate where the respondents live, as measured by the share of illiterate males among males 18 years and above, had a positive but insignificant impact on both empowerment dimensions. This may suggest that education in Egypt does not have a sig- nificant impact on raising awareness levels and radical changes in family values. Results showed that female’s perception of unequal gen- der roles is another determinant of her empowerment how- ever again empowerment dimension mattered. Acceptance of violence had a significant negative impact on empowerment. Results showed that women living in governorates with higher share of women approving violence are less likely to be empow- ered. Likewise, as the share of women who (strongly) agree that a woman with full time job cannot be a good mother at the governorate level increases, women are less likely to be em- powered; for both dimensions. While the share of women who (strongly) agree that a woman should be financially autonomous had a positive but insignificant impact on the likelihood of be- ing empowered. Finally, the share of women who believe that FGM should continue had a positive and significant impact on 7 These estimated results are based on MIMIC model with robust standard errors where clusters are considered. | 38 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 empowerment in the mobility model only. This is a surprising result that would require more investigation in future research. For the individual characteristics; it was evident that age has a non-linear impact on Egyptian female’s empowerment when measured by the decision-making power dimension. While her mobility continuously increases with age, this is expected as our sample includes only women with maximum age of 49 and hence the probability of experiencing health problems that would re- duce their mobility abilities is very limited. The results revealed that age at marriage had no significant effect on Egyptian fe- male’s empowerment; both her decision-making power as well as her mobility. Similarly, all education levels were found to have no significant effect on our two dimensions of empowerment with the exception of the post-secondary level that had a nega- tive impact on women mobility only. This is another surprising result as we would expect that when women have higher educa- tion level compared of being illiterate, they would have higher freedom of mobility. Interestingly, for the household wealth status, when the so- cial context is taken into consideration, household wealth cat- egories had no significant impact on any of the empowerment dimension with the exception of the fifth quintile that had a negative impact on women’s mobility as compared to women in the first wealth quintile. This could be due to the nature of the mobility questions in use, as these questions may not be of relevance to women in the top wealth quintiles. This was also the case for the effect of the region of birth; accounting for the social context the region of birth turned into insignificant. A woman’s position in the household had somehow different effects on our two dimensions of empowerment. Being a daugh- ter or a daughter in law versus a spouse decreased empower- ment in the decision-making context and had no significant impact on empowerment in the mobility model. While being a temporary head, as compared to a spouse, increased empower- ment for both dimensions. The share of sons among her children had no significant impact on mother’s empowerment no matter the dimen- sion tackled. While having children of any gender increased | 39 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 empowerment in the decision-making context and decreased it in the mobility model. This result confirms the idea that women’s domestic responsibilities and child care commitment may affect negatively women ability to go out of the house and hence their mobility as well as her labor force participation. It was also found that the increase in the numbers of adults living in the same household affects empowerment negatively in both dimensions. Women’s economic status and background as measured by her contribution and the contribution of her family in marriage cost had a positive impact on her empowerment only in the case of decision-making. A one-unit increase in that share increases the odds of empowerment by a factor of 0.208. Surprisingly respondent’s parents’ education had no effect on her empow- erment. While father’s employment status was found to be an important determinate of his daughter’s empowerment in both dimensions. A woman whose father has any of the job catego- ries- with the exception of private regular wageworker that had a positive but insignificant impact- is less empowered as com- pared to a woman whose father is a wageworker in the public sector. Finally, the age gap between the respondent and her husband decreased empowerment. Husband employment status was found to have a more pronounced significant impact in the case of decision-making although still most categories had no signifi- cant effect. A woman whose husband is a formal wageworker in the private sector or outside the labor force or manpower has greater empowerment as compared to a woman’s whose hus- band is a wageworker in the public sector. Table 2: Estimated Parameters for MIMIC Model for Decision and Mobility with Community Variables | 40 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 VARIABLES Decision Making Mobility       Age 0.000295*** 0.000170** (9.00e-05) (7.79e-05) Age square -2.56e-06* -8.03e-07 (1.35e-06) (1.23e-06) Age at first marriage -7.73e-05 -1.42e-05 (0.000117) (0.000109) Age at first marriage square 8.43e-07 -1.26e-06 (2.50e-06) (2.25e-06) Age gap between her and her husband -5.07e-05*** -4.44e-05*** (1.31e-05) (1.19e-05) Her education status (Reference: Illiterate) Literate but no basic education -0.0656 0.0302 (0.0503) (0.0427) Basic Education: (prim and prep) -0.0236 0.00641 (0.0295) (0.0189) Secondary 0.00569 0.00227 (0.0261) (0.0213) Post Secondary: Middle Institute -0.0470 -0.0691** (0.0420) (0.0320) University & post University -0.00930 -0.0156 (0.0332) (0.0397) Her status in the household (Reference: Spouse) Daughter/ Daughter in law -0.139*** 0.0146 (0.0366) (0.0410) Temporary head 0.334*** 0.310*** (0.0792) (0.0525) Others -0.00919 0.0359 (0.0948) (0.0929) Her daughter in law living with her -0.0257 -0.0359 (0.0726) (0.0641) Share of boys in her children 0.0143 0.0272 (0.0207) (0.0224) | 41 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Do you have children? 0.0336** -0.246*** (0.0171) (0.0386) Number of adults within the household -0.0300*** -0.0126** (0.0110) (0.00586) Share marriage cost 0.208*** 0.0778 (0.0611) (0.0565) Father Employment status (Reference: Public Wage Worker) Private regular wage worker 0.0136 0.0210 (0.0247) (0.0235) Private irregular wage worker -0.107*** -0.0580** (0.0282) (0.0245) Employer -0.0552*** -0.0296* (0.0198) (0.0169) Self employed and unpaid family worker or for others -0.0335 -0.0281 (0.0305) (0.0208) No job -0.230*** -0.242** (0.0635) (0.0981) Parents Education (Reference: Mother’s education lower than her father’s education) They both have same level of education 0.000366 0.00620 (0.0212) (0.0160) Mother’s education is higher 0.0345 0.00474 (0.0490) (0.0341) Household’s Wealth (Reference: First Quintile) Quintiles of household wealth = 2 0.0255 -0.0204 (0.0237) (0.0204) Quintiles of household wealth = 3 0.0333 0.00585 (0.0233) (0.0210) Quintiles of household wealth = 4 0.0314 -0.0292 (0.0293) (0.0250) Quintiles of household wealth = 5 0.0360 -0.0682** (0.0293) (0.0328) Her husband education with respect to hers (Reference: he has lower education level) | 42 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 They have same education -0.0362* -0.0121 (0.0211) (0.0164) He has higher education level -0.0271 -0.0372* (0.0216) (0.0202) Husband ‘s employment status (Reference: W age W orker in government or public sector) Formal wage worker in formal private sector 0.109*** 0.0419* (0.0325) (0.0248) Informal wage worker in private sector 0.000358 0.0269 (0.0200) (0.0187) Employer -0.0138 -0.00687 (0.0247) (0.0208) Self employed -0.0340 -0.0200 (0.0357) (0.0167) Unpaid family worker -0.0904 0.102 (0.0585) (0.0692) Unemployed -0.0388 -0.00630 (0.0583) (0.0491) Outside labor force 0.0927** -0.00942 (0.0468) (0.0392) Outside manpower 0.127** 0.0978* (0.0553) (0.0590) Born in rural areas 0.0212 0.0362 (0.0511) (0.0362) Community Characteristics Share of illiterate male among males of 18 years and plus at the governorate level 0.0446 0.0545 (0.0495) (0.0393) Share of female wage workers among all wage workers at the governorate level 0.0941** 0.0888*** (0.0411) (0.0306) Share of households with access to sewera- ge system at the governorate level 0.0183 0.0262 (0.0457) (0.0385) Ratio of women agreeing that an employed woman is not a good mother -0.0953* -0.0607* | 43 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 (0.0508) (0.0314) Ratio of women agreeing that a woman should be financially autonomous 0.00985 0.0131 (0.0414) (0.0246) Ratio of women agreeing that a man can beat his wife for any reason -0.123*** -0.0477** (0.0416) (0.0227) Ratio of women agreeing that FGM should continue 0.0438 0.0919*** (0.0406) (0.0202) Observations 8,796 8,796 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 CONCLUDING REMARKS The present paper focuses on the social context as a main de- terminant of women empowerment in Egypt. It analyzed the impact of social context in addition to individual, socio demo- graphic characteristics, on two dimensions of Egyptian women’s empowerment; decision-making power and mobility. In line with the literature most of our determinants had different im- pact on women’s empowerment based on which dimension is under investigation. The impact of community and individual characteristics on empowerment vary depending on the dimen- sion investigated, confirming that empowerment is a multi- di- mensional phenomenon, with women relatively empowered in some aspects but not in others. Our results show that local context plays an important role in determining Egyptian female’s empowerment, in addition to the traditional individual and socio demographics characteris- tics. Although some of our community level variables were sta- tistically insignificant 8 , including them in the analysis managed to explain 6.9 and 4.4 percentage points of the variation in deci- sion making power and mobility, respectively due to observed 8 Performing a joint significance test to these variables proved that they are jointly significant. | 44 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 and unobserved community characteristics at the governorate urban/rural level. It is evident that the most important community level char- acteristics that determine Egyptian women empowerment are the shares of employed women at the governorate where she lives and women self-esteem as reflected in higher share of women rejecting violence. While, the level of education of the community was not found to be significant. Accordingly, and in line with the theoretical approach used in this study, which consider gender relations as greatly affected by community norms and values, our results showed that social context is a strong predictor of women’s empowerment. This highlights the importance of viewing women empowerment and hence development as social and normative transforma- tions rather than just a shift in individual actions. Finally, these results have important implications for policies targeting Egyptian women empowerment. First, policies must pay more attention to changing the gender stratification system and its normative foundations at the local level. 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T. 2000. ‘The Role of Gender Context in Shaping Reproductive Behavior in Nigeria.’ In Women Empowerment and Demographic Processes: Moving Beyond Cairo, edited by H. Presser and G. Sen. New York: Oxford University Press. Malhotra, A. and Matherl, M. 1997. ‘Do Schooling and Work Empower Women in Developing Countries? Gender and Domestic Decisions in Sri Lanka’. Sociological Forum, 12 (4): 599-630. | 48 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Malhotra, A., Schuler, S.R. and Boender, C. 2002. Measuring Women Empowerment as a variable in International Development. Accessed on 5 January 2020, https://www.semanticscholar.org/ paper/Measuring-Women-’-s-Empowerment-as-a-Variable-in-Mal hotra/326b504f1c6dbf711891118ef7d0eeac9494342c. Mason, K. 1997. How Family Position Influences Married Women’s Autonomy and Power in Five Asian Countries. Honolulu, Hawaii: East-West Center. Mason, K. 1998. Wives Economic Decision-making Power in the Family: Five Asian Countries. In Changing Family in Comparative Perspective: Asia and the United States, edited by K. Oppenheim Mason. Honolulu: East-West Center. Mason, K. and Smith H. 1999. Female Autonomy and Fertility in Five Asian Countries. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, New York, March 25-27. | 49 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 APPENDIX Appendix 1: The Decision and Mobility Indicators For the decision-making power inside the household, five indi- cators (D i ) are used. Each respondent was asked the following questions: 1. Who take the decision for making large household purchases? 2. Who take the decision for making household purchases for daily needs? 3. Who take the decision concerning what food should be cooked each day? 4. Who take the decision concerning getting medical treatment or advice for yourself? 5. Who take the decision concerning buying clothes for yourself? Answers of these questions take the following values: • D i =5 : Not Applicable. • D i =4: if the respondent takes the decision alone. • D i =3: if the respondent takes the decision with her husband. • D i =2: if the respondent takes the decision with her husband and her in laws. • D i =1: if the respondent does not participate in the decision at all. For mobility, women were asked if they need no permission (M i =4),), have to just inform them (M i =3), need permission (M k =i) or cannot go alone (M i =1) or not applicable (M i =5) when going to: 1. Local market 2. Local health center. 3. Health center for the children. 4. Friends or relative houses. | 50 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Appendix 2: Average Values of Community Level Variables at the Governorates Level (%) Governorates Share of illiterate male Share of female wage worker among all wage workers Share of households with access to sewerage Share of women thinking that FGM should continue Share of those thin- king working women are not good mother Share of those ag- reeing hat a woman should be financially autonomous Cairo 24 26 94 44 5 24 Alex. 28 20 82 44 7 26 Port-Said 23 26 86 28 2 23 Suez 24 20 89 72 4 17 Damietta 45 15 54 37 1 14 Dakahlia 39 15 71 76 3 18 Sharkia 40 15 34 77 4 18 Kalyoubia 35 14 46 65 2 19 Kafr- Elsheikh 44 14 23 68 7 29 Gharbia 34 17 38 63 7 22 Menoufia 32 20 34 74 15 19 Behera 44 12 35 39 3 22 Ismailia 34 17 41 67 3 19 Giza 37 17 50 69 5 17 Beni-Suef 47 23 15 71 3 11 Fayoum 47 12 38 68 4 15 Menia 47 16 14 54 3 15 Asyout 43 15 12 57 7 25 Suhag 46 12 15 70 10 17 Qena 38 9 10 75 6 15 Aswan 28 17 36 82 7 19 Luxur 33 18 30 79 10 26 Egypt 27 16 39 63 5 19 Source: Computed by authors from Census (2006)-IPUMS, EDHS (2008) and ELMPS (2006 | 51 | Is Women’s Empowerment a Community Affair? Application on Egyptian Married Women Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Appendix 3: Output of the Likelihood Ratio Test Assumptions LR chi2 Prob > chi2 Mobility Models The Mobility model with only individual va- riables (Mobility Model -1) is nested in the Mobility Model with region dummies (Mobili- ty Model-2) 136.54 0.0000 The Mobility model with individual and region dummies variables (Mobility Model -2) is nes- ted in the Mobility Model with governorate dummies (Mobility Model-3) 634.88 0.000 The Mobility model with individual and dum- mies variables (Mobility Model -2) is nested in the Mobility Model with community Charac- teristics (Mobility Model-3) 432.68 0.000 Decision Model The Decision-making model with only indivi- dual variables (Decision Model -1) is nested in the Decision-making Model with region dum- mies (Decision Model-2) 302.00 0.000 The Decision-making model with individu- al and region dummies variables (Decision Model -2) is nested in the Decision-making Model with governorate dummies (Decision Model-3) 1107.03 0.000 The Decision-making model with individual and dummies variables (Decision Model -3) is nested in the Decision-making Model with community Characteristics (Decision Mo- del-4) 761.61 0.000 | 52 | Hanan Nazier Volume 13 | 2020 | Number 1 Appendix 4: Estimated Impact of Empowerment on the Different Indicators for Decision Making Power and Mobility (MIMIC) Decision Making Power Who take the deci- sions for: large household purchases? Household purchases for everyday? what food should be cooked daily getting medical treatment for yourself getting clothes for yourself? Empowerment 1 2.594*** 2.201*** 1.377*** 1.439*** (0) (0.242) (0.311) (0.135) (0.130) Mobility Freedom to go to Local market go to Health center take children to health Center to visit relatives and friends Empowerment 1 3.262*** 1.855*** 1.969*** (0) (0.286) (0.176) (0.132) Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1