The document summarizes three papers presented at a special session on transitions in the life course in the Middle East and North Africa region. The first paper by Assaad et al. examines the effect of early marriage (defined as before the median age at first marriage) on women's employment outcomes in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. It finds early marriage significantly reduces the probability of women working, particularly in private sector jobs. The second paper by Nazim and Ramadan assesses the influence of pre-marital bargaining power on post-marital bargaining power, as measured by decision-making, across the same three countries. It finds the association is context-specific. The third paper by Kra

1. Special Session on Transition in
the Life Course in MENA:
Discussion of Papers Presented
Kathryn M. Yount
Economic Research Forum annual meeting
March 18-20, 2017
Amman Jordan

2. Three papers part of this Special Session
Assaad et al.
• Effect of AFM on
women’s employment
in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia
• Early marriage defined
as before median AFM
• Examine different types
of work
• Endogenize marriage
decision using IV
approach
Nazin and Ramadan
• Assn of premarital
bargaining power (Pre-
MBP) on Post-MBP in
Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia
• PreMBP: individual and
marital attributes
(dowry pymt, pymt on
divorce, etc)
• PMBP: decision-making
• Effect of work in
marriage timing for
women and men in
Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia
• Discrete time hazard for
age at first marriage, IV
approach to control for
endogeneity of
employment
Krafft and Assaad

3. Assaad et al. set up of the paper
Characteristics of
Women’s Employment
Egypt Jordan Tunisia
Employment rates 18 13 20
Unemployment rates 20-30 40 40
Gov’t employment
(among the employed)
52 43 --
Median age at first
marriage
22 22 27
• Difficulty of reconciling work
with domestic duties assumed to
be a key reason for low wage
work among women in MENA
• Unlike prior papers, this paper
takes a multivariate approach
and accounts for the endo-
geneity of the marriage decision

4. Assaad et al. key findings
Primary analyses of AFM and work outcomes
• Marriage by median age significantly negatively related to market
work, wage work, private and public wage work for all 3 countries.
• Marriage by median age reduces the probability of working for
women by 47% in Jordan, 33% in Tunisia, and 16% in Egypt
• Much of this effect on work is due to a reduction in the probability of
private work: 70% in Jordan, 57% in Tunisia, 40% in Egypt
• Differences in effects likely due to differences in the availability of
self-employment opportunities across three countries

5. Assaad et al. key findings
Exploration of reasons for observed empirical relationships
• Domestic duties
• Domestic and market hours
• Length of paid / unpaid maternity leave
• Primary / secondary child care providers
• Work place environment
• Commutes to work

6. Assaad et al. comments
• Justification for IVs? How do they perform? Implications for analysis?
1. Localized F-to-M sex ratios: female 5-yr/ male 5-yr prior cohort to account for
spousal age differences; computed at different administrative levels – so does this
IV capture “marriage market squeeze” equally well across contexts?
2. Ratio of female siblings to all siblings to capture “exogenous” measure of natal
household structure that may affect marriage timing for different female siblings;
to what extent is gender composition of children “exogenous” across each of the 3
contexts in the study (our research in Egypt suggests that parents are less likely to
use contraception until they have a son)
3. IVs are “weak” according to standard tests performed by authors: To what extent
are the “similarities” in the results across different estimation strategies
“reassuring” or simply the result of having weak instruments?

7. Assaad et al. comments
• Why is median age at first marriage measuring “early marriage”?
• Standard demographic definition of early marriage is < 18 years, very early
marriage is < 15 years.
• Reasons for these cutoffs are developmental --- women are not physically,
emotionally, or cognitively ready to be making decisions about marriage.
• Choice of cut-point for early marriage, at a minimum, should be justified
beyond “empirical grounds” to capture substantive issues related to early
marriage across contexts.

8. Assaad et al. comments
• Policy discussion is detailed but what is missing?
• All recommendations for policy focus on improving the work conditions for
women rather than incentivizing men to play a more active role at home and
in child care.
• Are we reinventing the Western policy wheel regarding women’s work?
• Policies that reduce discrimination in pay and in the workplace, making work
environments more favorable for women might be systematically addressed.
• Our own work in Qatar (a very different context) suggests that young women worry a lot
about the conditions of the work environment and implications for their “reputation” of
working in the “wrong” environment.
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that women experience “sticky floors” and “glass ceilings”
which may discourage entry into and retention in the workforce. Better analysis of
workplace discrimination would go far to bring policy attention to this issue.

9. Assaad et al. comments
• Qualitative research could help to unpack mechanisms for the
relationship between “early marriage” and work outcomes for
women in these settings
• Recommend undertaking parallel qualitative data collection with the next
LMPS to “unpack” some of the findings from the quantitative data analysis.
• Exploring mechanisms qualitatively will lead to innovations in future
quantitative data collection and subsequent policy innovations for the region.

10. Nazim and Ramadan set up of paper
• Assess influence of pre-marital bargaining power (Pre-MBP) on Post-marital
bargaining power (Post-MBP) across same 3 countries in MENA using same
datasets
• Nice review of the economic and social science literature on the economics of
marriage in MENA
• Methods include MIMIC SEM to estimate associations of main interest
• Pre-MBP measured with individual and “marital” characteristics, which
recognizes marriage as a “family event” in region.
• “marital characteristics” contextualized to include conditions of the marriage
contract, such as value of dowry/bride price, value of payment on divorce, value
of ayma, and relative spousal characteristics
• Post-MBP measured as a decision-making latent construct

11. Nizam and Ramadan findings
• Main finding: association of PreMBP with PostMBP context specific
1. Tunisia: Marriage characteristics no significant influence on DMP
2. Egypt: living arrangements, divorce payment, and bride price significantly
associated with DMP in expected directions
3. Jordan: Living arrangements, divorce payment associated with ↑ DMP
Bride price associated with ↓ DMP

12. Nizam and Ramadan comments
• Background would benefit from clearer conceptualization of the
main constructs
1. Clearer conceptualization of the overall model
2. Naila Kabeer’s Resources-Agency-Achievements framework as a useful
reference
• Why only one dimension of agency (decision-making) included in
the analysis (and not freedom of movement or gender attitudes)?
Enabling
Resources
Agency Achievements

13. Nizam and Ramadan comments
• Some aspects of the analytical strategy could be better clarified.
1. How are the response options for DMP coded/recoded? Note that making a
decision “alone” could indicate a lack of support rather than agency.
2. Estimation of measurement model is unclear; could be based on
tetrachoric correlation matrix with ordinal/binary DMP items
• More interpretation of the results is needed.
1. For example, why does own schooling have little/no influence in Egypt and
Tunisia?
• Overall, interesting topic, provocative findings, need to elaborate
the conceptual framing, methods, and interpretation of the findings

14. Krafft and Assaad setup of paper
• Examine the role of work in enabling or constraining marriage timing
in same three countries, for men and women separately
• Men: employment and quality of employment matter for timing of
marriage: effect of public-sector employment on increasing the
hazard of marriage increases with controls for endogeneity of work.
• Women: Public-sector employment increases hazard of marriage with
controls for the endogeneity of work.
• Implications: young people may wish to stay unemployed longer if it
leads to a higher-quality job, opening opportunities for marriage

15. Krafft and Assaad key findings
• Methods
1. Discrete-time proportional hazard models estimated separately for each
gender and country
2. IV for endogeneity and 3-stage residual inclusion IV approach used because
of the non-continuous measurement scale of the endogenous explanatory
variable and final outcome variable.
3. IV analysis focuses on effect of public-sector work b/c PSE is popular among
young people and an instrument is available (proportion of adults working
in public sector jobs in local labor market each year).
4. Use govt of birth and urban/rural dummies to capture time invariant
aspects of localities related to employment opportunities.
5. Account for stock and flow of public employment opportunities with lagged
and current community level employment variable.

16. Krafft and Assaad key findings
• Data
1. Panel creation: Novel use of labor market histories and timing of marriage
variables from most recent cross-sectional LMPS data for all three countries
to re-create panels; actual panel data also used for Egypt
2. Sample: For some analyses (e.g., to include marriage costs), the sample is
restricted to those who are married. It would be helpful to comment on the
implications of having those who married earlier being disproportionately
represented in the sample
3. Recognize role for migration in delaying marriage, but data not available
for migration except for Egypt, so omitted. Some detail on the influence of
including migration on the estimates for Egypt would be useful.

17. Krafft and Assaad key findings
• Comparative descriptive analysis is interesting and informative --- reveals:
• High employment for (especially married) men relative to (especially married)
women across all three settings.
• High share of public-sector employment among employed married women, high
share of private sector employment among employed unmarried women, and high
levels of private-sector employment among working men.
• Declines in public sector employment in Egypt and Jordan.
• High universality of ever-marriage in Egypt but not Jordan or Tunisia.
• Egyptian women marry earliest, at median age of ~21, compared to a median age at
marriage of 33 in Tunisian men.
• Gender differences in the age-specific hazard of marriage also interesting, with
hazard increasing then decreasing to almost 0 by age 35 for women across settings,
and increasing then remaining at .1 to .2 for men in all settings.

18. Krafft and Assaad findings
• For MV models that do not account for endogeneity:
• Men: Employment in general assoc. with increased hazard of marriage.
• Women: Public-sector work associated with EARLIER marriage; private-sector
work associated with LATER marriage, in general.
• Concurrent work associated with higher hazard of marriage for men in Egypt
and Jordan; delay in marriage for women; having held a job previously
associated with higher hazard of marriage for women.
• Costs of marriage analysis – higher family share associated with increased
hazard of marriage.
• For MV models that do account for endogenity:
• Public-sector employment increases hazard for men AND women, generally.

19. Krafft and Assaad comments
• Implications of findings are well laid out, especially that contraction
of public sector employment opportunities may delay marriage for
women and men.
• Good contextualization of the findings in light of other economic
conditions in these settings (e.g., changes in the housing market in
Egypt may have opposite effect on marriage timing).
• Discussion is somewhat repetitive of the findings presented in the
main results section; More summation, interpretation, and discussion
of the implications of the results for research and policy would be
helpful.

20. Krafft and Assaad comments
• IV analysis is restricted to public-sector employment exposure. There is a
need to extend the analysis to other types of work, especially given the
high levels of private-sector employment among men and unmarried
women.
• What other work-place policies are informed by this analysis, e.g.,
improving conditions in private sector to retain unmarried women working
in that sector?
• What about the influence of dual employment? E.g., influence of
concurrent work in the public and private sectors on marriage timing?
• Since the IV analysis is restricted to public-sector employment, should the
focus of the eventual paper be narrower?