Policy Research Working Paper10661For Labor or for Divorce?Unilateral Divorce Laws and Women’s Labor Outcomes Najat El Mekkaoui Sara LoukiliYeganeh FourouheshfarNada Eissa Middle East and North Africa RegionOffice of the Chief EconomistJanuary 2024 Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedProduced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 10661Despite substantial progress in closing the gender gap, women’s labor force participation in the Middle East and North Africa remains one of the lowest globally, at a mere 18 percent. This paper investigates the effect of the introduc-tion of unilateral divorce laws on women’s labor outcomes, using data from the Demographic and Health Survey program that spans decades and a quasi-experimental dif-ference-in-differences design in three countries: Morocco, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Jordan. The results high-light that no-fault divorce legislation was associated with a modest increase in mothers’ labor outcomes, measured by current employment, a few years after the reform. These findings are likely induced by a power shift and anticipatory effects that drive women into the labor force. However, when a longer time window is considered, 10 or more years after the reform, the study documents a negative effect of the reform on women’s labor outcomes in Morocco, and a positive effect in the Arab Republic of Egypt and Jordan. These differences can be attributed to a set of countervailing effects, including social norms, labor market dynamics, and evolution of the legislation, that make the derived utility from marriage, in some cases, more attractive than that derived from employment, and vice versa. These findings partially confirm results from previous research on the rela-tionship between no-fault divorce and women’s agency and empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa region, but, at the same time, contrast with prominent perspectives on legislation that aims at reducing gender-based discrim-ination. Instead, they show that there might be undesired effects of legislation and provide a policy relevant discussion on that basis.This paper is...
