The impacts of improving educational attainment on the empowerment of women

Abstract

We studied effects of 1997 Compulsory Schooling Reform in Turkey, which increased compulsory schooling from 5 years to 8 years on the empowerment of women. Individuals born before 1987 were not exposed to the reform, and the ones born in and after 1987 were affected. This cutoff created an environment suitable to use Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design to investigate causal effects of new law on the empowerment of women. We used data from TDHS and HLFS. We observed a significant increase in schooling of women in addition to the men in the households. Then, we found that educational difference and age difference between partners decreased resulting from the reform. Additionally, there were improvements in women’s labor force participation, employment status, and wages. Women agreeing on the statement “Men are wiser.” decreased, and there was an increase in ideal marriage age. Women get more help for setting dinner table, while less help for kitchen shopping. They have more money to spend, own less asset because of the reform. However, we observe an increase in agreement on some beating justifications especially about motherhood and wife duties, which can be a sign of strong social norms rooted in the patriarchal society. Overall, we observe significant improvements in education of women, which results in better employment status and wages. However, these improvements do not reflect themselves on the empowerment of women much. Strong traditional norms may be an obstacle in this way.