Women’s agency and fertility in Egypt

埃及妇女的能动性和生育能力

• 批准号: 504049463
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Henriette Engelhardt-Wölfler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Professur für Demografie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/504049463?language=en
• 关键词: Women; agency; fertility; Egypt

The goal of this project is to provide evidence on the relationship between women’s agency and fertility in Egypt. Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region where strong patriarchal norms and generally low levels of women’s agency prevail. In this context, fertility is very important for women’s social position, and motherhood is almost universal. Based on a life course perspective, which considers women’s agency and fertility as sequentially linked, we pose two research questions: (1) Does women’s agency affect their fertility desires and number of children in Egypt? (2) Do motherhood or subsequent births affect women’s agency in Egypt? There are no longitudinal studies that provide causal evidence on these two research questions. While there exist many cross-sectional studies on the first question in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, very few studies were conducted in the MENA region. Across all world regions, there is a considerable gap of knowledge on the reverse effect, how fertility affects women’s agency. The proposed research will apply methods that allow to identify causal effects under weaker assumptions than in previous studies. Data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), the Harmonized Survey of Young People in Egypt (HSYPE), and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) will be used. Research on women’s agency is important, as it is a relevant predictor of women’s and their children’s health and well-being as well as of societal development. Some scholars consider increasing women’s agency as a strategy to lower fertility. Therefore, knowledge of how agency and fertility influence each other may be particularly relevant for Egypt, where fertility recently increased. The anticipated results are expected to add substantially to both scientific and public discussions.

该项目的目标是为埃及妇女的代理与生育之间的关系提供证据。埃及是中东和北非（MENA）人口最多的国家，该地区普遍存在强烈的父权规范和普遍较低的妇女能动性。在这种情况下，生育对妇女的社会地位非常重要，而母亲几乎是普遍的。基于生命历程的观点，认为妇女的代理和生育是顺序联系的，我们提出了两个研究问题：(1)妇女的代理是否影响她们的生育愿望和孩子的数量？(2)母性或后续生育是否影响埃及妇女的代理？没有纵向研究为这两个研究问题提供因果证据。虽然在南亚和撒哈拉以南非洲对第一个问题进行了许多横断面研究，但在中东和北非地区进行的研究很少。在世界所有区域，对生育力如何影响妇女能动性这一反向效应的认识存在相当大的差距。拟议的研究将采用的方法允许在比以前的研究更弱的假设下确定因果关系。将使用来自埃及劳动力市场小组调查（ELMPS）、埃及青年统一调查（HSYPE）和人口与健康调查（DHS）的数据。对妇女能动性的研究很重要，因为它是妇女及其子女的健康和福祉以及社会发展的相关预测指标。一些学者认为增加女性的能动性是降低生育率的一种策略。因此，关于机构和生育率如何相互影响的知识可能对最近生育率增加的埃及特别相关。预期的结果将大大增加科学和公众的讨论。