The effects of compulsory schooling laws on women’s status in the family

Abstract

In this study we investigate the impacts of 1997 Compulsory Education Reform in Turkey on women’s status in the family. With the reform, the duration of compulsory schooling was extended to 8 years from 5 years. Individuals born in 1987 and after were affected by the policy while previous birth cohorts were not. This setting is suitable to implement a Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design and we can infer the causal effects of the policy on women’s empowerment and status in the family. Employing data from TDHS 2013, we first document a significant increase in the mean years of schooling of women. Then, we show that the policy leads women to change their views on certain gender roles and increase their ideal age of marriage. There is a strong evidence that policy leads women to support working when they have little children. Moreover, policy decreases the frequency of controlling actions faced by women about money and increases the rate of women who have money to spend. However, there is no evidence of policy effect on asset holdings and share of household responsibilities. Although the results do not indicate substantial changes in women’s status in the family, they suggest that the policy leads women to improve their financial independence and awareness of the benefits of paid work.