Harmful Traditions, Women Empowerment and Development

ended

Harmful traditions (e.g. child marriage, female genital cutting (FGC), breast ironing) affect millions of girls in developing countries. These customs have a strong detrimental effect on women’s human capital accumulation, empowerment and wellbeing, thus perpetuating gender imbalance and the vicious circle of poverty. Yet we know remarkably little on why these norms persist and what policies are able to eradicate them. This project will help to fill this gap. I will address the following research questions: How have harmful traditions originated in the first place and why do they persist over time? Given that simply legislating against harmful traditions is often ineffective, can we design policy interventions able to change them in a way that is conducive to development? To answer to the first question, I will start by investigating the historical roots of female genital cutting since slavery. Combining contemporary survey data with historical data on slave shipments by ethnic group and across slave routes, I will test whether current variation in FGC prevalence within Africa can be traced back to the Red Sea slave trades, where women were sold as concubines and infibulation was used to ensure chastity. I will then examine whether contemporaneous factors, and in particular current political institutions, play a role in perpetuating harmful norms, manipulating the timing of FGC to influence electoral outcomes. Finally, using climate data, I will provide new insights on the relationship between global warming and child marriage. To answer to the second question, I propose three randomized control trials uniquely designed to address specific determinants of the persistence of harmful traditions: alternative harmless rituals to remove cultural barriers, information provision to reduce breast ironing, peers’ interactions to decrease FGC and child marriage. Original data will be collected through field work, overcoming data limitations characterizing existing research.