That’s What She Said

I was a step ahead (though I had actually written the post about 2 weeks ago) in writing that the United States, NATO, and Afghani government should pursue diplomatic talks with the Taliban. And lo and behold, in today’s New York Times, Afghanistan Tests Waters for Overture to Taliban:

The Afghan government and its allies in the region have begun approaching the Taliban and other insurgent groups with new intensity to test the possibilities for eventual peace talks, Western diplomats and Afghan officials here say.

The diplomatic approaches have been stepped up over the last several months by the Afghan government, as well as by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the officials said. They are part of a broad political effort to stem the downward spiral of violence in Afghanistan and the steep decline of public support for the government during a year that has proved to be the bloodiest of the past seven.

Security has deteriorated to the point that a growing chorus of Western diplomats, NATO commanders and Afghans has begun to argue that the insurgency cannot be defeated solely by military means. Some officials in Kabul contend that the war against the insurgents cannot be won and are calling for negotiations.

It should be noted, however, that negotiations will not solve Afghanistan’s problems on the whole — I see the continued allegiance to the Taliban as symptomatic, rather than the cause of, the failed Afghani state and the lack of serious development and infrastructural progress. And I personally think that the long-term solution towards eradicating groups like the Taliban is in the form of short-term stability, long-term development.

See Also: Journalist embeds with the Taliban, Bing West can’t handle the truth, Some Background on the Karzai-Taliban Talks, Will More US Troops Really Help in Afghanistan?, IRAN: No Afghan peace without Tehran, Return of the Talib (& Why Neither McCain, nor Obama, “Get it”), Defense Transformation in the Post-Rumsfeld Era, and Afghanistan: Security Continues to Decline in Kabul.

[tags]taliban, afghanistan, saudi arabia, afghani government, afghan government, peace talks, diplomacy, diplomatic efforts, talks with the taliban, pakistan[/tags]

The Sauds Bring The Taliban To The Peace Table, And The West Should Too

Two weeks ago in Mecca, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hosted talks between the Afghani government and the Taliban to begin dialogue on reconciliation between the two parties and reintroducing a large segment of the population into national institutions. Against the grain of American/NATO policy, the Sauds have once again been forced to go behind Western backs to seek stability in the region.

The situation seems oddly familiar — one side heralded by the West as part of long-term Middle East democratization, the other derided as a destabilizing, rogue organization that must be excluded at all costs. In February of 2007, the Sauds brought together Fatah and Hamas in spite of fervent American activity to remove Hamas from power, including direct coup attacks in Gaza. Though the Palestinian Unity government would hastily collapse, it showed that ‘radicalized’ elements could be brought into governing coalitions in the Middle East.

Like Hamas, the Talibans support is broad-based and entrenched within the socio-political fabric. The forceful strategy of NATO has isolated the Taliban to some degree but has failed to remove supporters or impact its activities, specifically in the Southeast provinces of Afghanistan. With the increased militant activity of the Taliban against infrastructure, any economic development that could potentially decrease the patronage of militant organizations is stymied.

Indeed, top officials in NATO are admitting that the Afghani war is not winnable via military tactics. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain’s top military officer in Afghanistan, has said, “We’re not going to win this war.” At best, he says, international troops can hope to reduce it “to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat.”

For a viable Afghan state to emerge, elements of the Taliban must be engaged and some enveloped into a governing coalition. Lacking the will power and capability to destroy the Taliban by conventional military means, the West must seek out alternative methods of stabilizing Afghanistan. With direct diplomatic talks and promoting carrots over sticks, the West foster development within Afghanistan and allow for future political and social stability.

Sources

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23612315/how_we_lost_the_war_we_won/print

Saudi hosts Afghan peace talks with Taliban reps, CNN

Solving the Problems of Afghanisan, The Economist

Facing Reality in Afghanistan: Talking with the Taliban, Time

The Coming Change of Course in Afghanistan

See Also: The Woe In Afghanistan, A Grand Bargain In Afghanistan?, Talking To The Taliban, A New Strategy for Afghanistan, Germany Renews Afghanistan Mandate, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Agree To Talk To Taliban, Al-Qaeda’s Progression On Pakistan’s Demise, Two Daring Attacks on US Troops in Afghanistan, Afghanistan/Pakistan: Talks with Taliban, US Air Strikes, NATO Hits its Limit, Bringing Freedom to Afghanistan, and US Changing Course, now Willing to Talk With Taliban.

[tags]taliban, taleban, peace talks, afghanistan, saudi arabia, sustained peace, dialogue, us-led government, united states, diplomacy, southeast afghanistan, southwest afghanistan, pakistan, talibani forces, stability[/tags]

Property Rights As Growth Strategy

1. Introduction

The property rights school, a dominant philosophy in development strategies pursued by donor agencies, asks for the rapid legal institutionalization of private property that will theoretically move economies towards pareto efficient uses of resources and expand growth. However, pursuit of property stabilization as a means to a growth strategy is deleterious, as brisk institutionalization of private property regimes proved disastrous in a development context and created additional social pressures leading to humanitarian catastrophes. Further, in the history of the countries that now comprise the ‘developed world’, property stabilization was an elongated, bloody transformation that accompanied hundreds of years of conflict, demographic shifts, intricate adjustment, and political alteration. To expect a swift, fastidious, and peaceful transformation during property rights stabilization in light of recent history in Rwanda, Nepal, and across the developing world has shown to be not only myopic and intellectually dishonest, but dangerous as well.

2. Why Property Rights Stabilization as a Growth Strategy?

“Countries with better institutions, more secure property, and less distortionary policies will invest more in physical and human capital, and will use these factors more efficiently to achieve a greater level of income” (Acemoglu, 1369)

The property rights school is closely aligned with neoclassical fields objective of growth through liberalization of markets in developing countries. For those seeking property rights stabilization, this typically means moving towards the final objective of privatization of property. Theoretically, property rights stabilization will reduce transaction costs and risk, thus increase investment, growth, and aggregate social welfare. In the words of Bates, “because the formation of capital spans time, the decision to invest entails risk”, so the minimization of risk will stimulate long-term growth (22). This will be an efficiency maximizing outcome, implying that the framework is neutral as regards to distribution and economically efficient; i.e., simply, unconcerned with distributional inequality as long as net social welfare increases.

The privatization of state enterprises will also be an efficient advancement, as public enterprises are believed to have poorer performance than private enterprises (Boycko 309). Analysis stems from the idea that private enterprises are relatively more productive because public enterprises “address the objectives of politicians rather than maximize efficiency” (Boycko 309). In essence, public enterprises lack the responsiveness, flexibility, and accountability that make private businesses competitive and profitable because they are inhibited by political motivations. Further, Boycko references several studies that highlight the higher costs of public versus private service in America, the inferior profitability of state relative to private firms in Mexico, and the across the globe phenomena of private firm efficiency (309). Privatization of public enterprises will remove the political problem by reducing information politicians have, which will lead to reduction of subsidies, decrease the enticement for corruption, and enhance incentives for restructuring (Boycko 310). The critical agency problem is of politicians rather than managers, and “privatization works because it controls political discretion” (Boycko 318).

Empirically, researchers like Acemoglu have correlated long-term growth with property rights stabilization. Former colonies with higher rates of European settlement are seen to have a strong emphasis on private property rights that have facilitated the industrial rise of countries such as America, Australia, and New Zealand (Acemoglu 1370). By removing public enterprise and creating a legal framework for private property, developing nations should see ‘overall efficiency improve after privatization’ (Boycko 309). Succinctly, for Acemoglu and others, this means pursuing an economic policy that attempts to replicate the institutional success of the ‘neo-Europes’ into the developing world (1370).

3. The Theoretical Shortcomings of Property Rights as Growth

“The real problem with the GKI and World Bank positions is that by failing to identify the real protagonists in possible future conflicts, these models are not even assisting the initiation of a political debate.” (Khan, 77)

Theoretical considerations of property rights stabilization suffer from several disparities and gaps in their conceptualization. In the paradigm of stable property rights, the argument is one of historical prevalence of economy efficiency, rather than a more historically visible political or social process riddled with contestation. While Demsetz and Coase see an economic outcome arising from the economic man, property rights have proven to be an unequal distributive process that often lowers social welfare. The functionality of property rights stability is seen as a cause of, instead of an outcome of, capitalist growth. However, the emergence of stable property rights more properly should be seen as coincidental with advanced capitalism in Western countries, rather than creating growth in its own right.

In the arguments of Barzel and other property rights thinkers, property right stabilization will drive efficiency through profit seeking which investment and technology drives. However, in the developing world, political rent seeking – in the form of corruption, strikes, legal manipulation, and other institutional maneuvering – may be more accessible and cheaper than investing in technology to attain the same level of returns. This situation will inherently mean individuals will invest in political in lieu of technological investments to raise their outputs. Criticism of this fallacy extends to the institutional and bureaucratic capability of developing countries successfully to enact such expansive reforms. As Bates concisely remarks, “Too often, in the developing world, politicians fail to induce the selection of policies that offer attractive prospects to investors and institutions too rarely impose limits upon those who would use power to prey upon the wealth of others” (107). Perilously, the factions that emerge to compete for this political capital are often be divided along the colonial era fault lines, creating the potential for the explosively brutal situations the world has repeatedly witnessed in Rwanda, Malaysia, and across the developing world.

In the conclusion of the property stabilization process, total social welfare should theoretically rise from adjusted incentives, reduced transaction costs, and improved economic growth. However, raised social welfare may derive from the relative increase of welfare of the few at the expense of the many, where prior wealth may be the main determinant of property distribution in ‘reformed systems’. Class antagonisms will inherently increase, and in the words of Khan, “this is hardly surprising since those who stand to lose from system change are hardly likely to be comforted by the fact that society in aggregate will be better off” (7). The explicit process of land privatization and redistribution is extremely delicate for those in the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of the population engages in small or subsistence agriculture. Redistribution of lands will often leave those reliant on agriculture for basic needs landless and further disempowered, hence more prone to conflict mechanisms for grievance reconciliation.

The framework suffers in general from trying to apply complex processes witnessed in the developed world that are historically and socially misinterpreted. This is reflected in the reliance by theorists on utilizing recent examples in the West – inefficiency of public sector in America and Boycko’s ‘success stories’ of privatization reformers in Great Britain and the Czech Republic – to justify instituting a like policy in the developing framework. By focusing on the policies of the West, the complexities and realities of the developing world are discounted to the detriment of the property stability model and the developing nations such thinking is thrust upon.

4. Empirical Examples: Property Stabilization for the Developing World

“Aggressively championing plans for rapid economic development, political elites in the developing world used their control over the economy to organize the polity, distributing patronage in order to stay in power… The politics of patronage gave way to democracy, on the one hand, and on the other, political violence.” (Bates 100)

Stabilization efforts in developing countries often undermines social cohesion, traditional and local balances, and ignites conflict, stemming from externally-imposed policies that lack indigenous legitimacy and effective internal enforcement mechanisms. Still grappling with ineffective governance and multifarious remnants from colonialism, developing countries can lack the appropriate institutional or social frameworks to enact such far-reaching property stabilization programs. The privatization of property often leads to the demonopolization of violence in developing nations, creating a militarization that Bates terms as “the private provision of coercion providing security only within the penumbra of violence” that “can work, it can produce peace, but the peace it produces is unstable” (47, 49). Indeed, examples used from the past by the privatization school, specifically Acemoglu, typically disclude the experience of original habitants of the success stories of colonial history, such as the near-genocidal treatment of Native Americans in the Americas or the aboriginals in Australia. In the following cases, government efforts became empty legalities without appropriate and corresponding enforcement mechanisms, leading to inefficient economic outcomes, environmental degradation, intense society-wide violence, and propelling a Wild West mentality to land, resources, and other humans.

4.1 Property Stabilization and Conflict: Rwanda in the 1980’s and 1990’s

Rwanda in the late 1980’s pursued agricultural commercialization in conjunction with a privatization strategy under the tutelage of the World Bank, a significant measure as 92 percent of the population worked in the agricultural sector (Storey 52). The program resulted in increasing levels of land inequality where richer elements were able to amass larger land holdings at the cost of mass displacement of large segments of rural population (Storey 54). Low levels of violence riddled the transformation from the onset, where the lack of enforcement or observational mechanisms allowed a milieu where violence and coercion determined property rights. By 1994, 25 percent of the population was landless, one in six were affected by famine, kilocalorie production per farmer decreased by 25 percent, and even in areas untouched by violence, PCGDP had fallen by 35 percent a year (Storey 50, 54).

Following rural collapse, the system of hierarchical structure through tribes, exploited by Belgian colonization, reemerged and strengthened as political factions in the Rwandan democracy (Storey 36). This manifested itself through group confrontations between Hutus and Tutsis. Land hunger became a motive factor in the social sanctioning of conflict and political contestation that took on an increasingly ethnic coloring (Storey 54). In the words of Storey, “inequality, and its corollary – landlessness, certainly added to the situation of what Uvin terms ‘structural violence’ from which more direct violence then flowed” (54). The subsequent political collapse and civil war was directly attributed to the adjustment program by thinkers like Chossudovsky, who witnessed “a state administrative apparatus in disarray, state enterprises in bankruptcy, and the total collapse of public services”, leaving little room for peaceful negotiation or alterations. While the property adjustment program does not capture the entirety or complexities of causation of the Rwandan genocide, it does illustrate that pressures stemming from property stabilization programs can often unleash violent and uncontrollable consequences.

4.2 Environmental Consequences of Property Stability: Nepal

Since attempts to nationalize forest areas began in 1957, Nepal has shifted from nationalization to semi-privatization to local management, only to return fully to the community based management system in the past decade after severe environmental depletion. Forestry represents the dominant land use system with 29 percent of land covered by forest, with an additional 10 percent covered by shrub (Acharya 150). Forests are an integral part of the farming system and are heavily depended on for subsistence farming by providing multiple functionalities, including animal fodder and bedding, firewood, agricultural implements, and timber for building (Acharya 2). More than 80% of the population depends on subsistence farming, meaning forests are important from a socio-cultural and economic standpoint (Acharya 149).

Shift in policy began in 1957 when forests were nationalized as an attempt by the Nepalese government to maximize resource utilization to widen the tax base and increase food production (Gautam 136). Though a massive bureaucracy was created and stringent laws were promulgated, the nationalization process lacked local enforcement apparatuses. Subsequently, massive deforestation and environmental ruin occurred (Gautam 136). After the apparent failure of the nationalization experiment, Nepal moved into a quasi-privatization program in the mid-1970’s. Acharya evaluates the system of privatization in Nepal as imbalanced and prone to manipulation, saying “privatization is more conducive to dominancy of forest properties by members of the elite, though centralized methods also may limit participation, misappropriate power, and not address concerns of poor and marginalized groups” (10). Privatization also appears to have lowered incentives for sustaining what were once shared resources and unveiled an open access mentality to the forests. Forest resource conditions in areas privatized are relatively worse compared to those in collective or centralized institutional arrangements (Acharya 10). From 1979 to 1994, Nepal lost approximately 14 percent of forest and shrub cover (Gautam 142).

In the past decade, Nepal has moved to a community forestry program that empowers user groups to regulate local forestry, reminiscent of the indigenous systems in place before 1957 (Gautam 146). This has met with several successes, including reversing the deforestation process, institution building, and economic benefit to local people, as a result of what Gautam views as “institutions built upon established systems of authority” that allowed for successful monitoring and enforcement mechanisms (146). Indeed, for the first time in three decades, the annual rate of change in forest and shrub cover has increased (Gautam 142). In a process that spanned five decades, Nepal enforced a range of property stabilization techniques, only to learn that various attempts to institute policy without sufficient local legitimacy proved malevolent to environmental and economic outcomes.

4.3 Property Right Stabilization — At What Cost?

Alterations to property carried out en masse, whether privatization or nationalization, lead to an unequal redistribution of rights often politically disadvantageous and socially volatile. Indeed, while Nepal’s and Rwanda’s experiences do not typify the occurrence of property stabilization, the property stabilization program is one that largely has failed to bring substantive and positive change to the developing world. When one reflects that in developing nations, subsistence agriculture is often the main occupation of most inhabitants, enforcing privatization can mean depriving households of basic livelihood. Contestation and conflict over this ‘advancement’ does not seem exceptional but rather inevitable. Where Bates says ‘insecurity is far too often the norm’ that maintains underdevelopment, it is ironic that such property security programs have continued to destabilize states and hinder growth. In essence, asking regimes lacking in institutional legitimacy in developing nations to carry out vast economic programs will necessarily lead to unstable outcomes.

5. Conclusion

Though an important long-term goal, stabilization of property rights is a tenuous process that requires precision, time, and most importantly, legitimacy deriving from the appropriate backing of local and regional enforcement mechanisms. Property stabilization advocates, having misunderstood the history of the industrial world’s own great transformation, mistakenly believe that the application of such schemes can be replicated in the developing framework in the interest of economic development. While Western aid agencies and the property rights school may show a disinterest in the social processes that accompany the private property transition, destabilizing social and political processes will accompany the enactment of property stabilization efforts in the developing world. Recent history has shown that attempts to alter property rights through structural adjustment programs can lead to environmental dilapidation, political fracture, and mass violence. The moral implications and human costs of such policies are far too real and tangible to allow property stabilization measures to continue as a foundation for growth strategy in developing nations.

Sources

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S. and Robinson, J. A. (2001). The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. American Economic Review. Vol. 91 (5): 1369-401.

Acharya, K.P. (2002). Private, Collective, and Centralized System of Institutional Arrangements in Community Forestry in Nepal. Presented at “The Commons in an Age of Globalisation.”

Acharya, K.P. (2002). Twenty-four Years of Community Forestry in Nepal. International Forestry Review. Volume 4 (2).

Barzel, Yoram. Economic Analysis of Property Rights. Chs. 5-6.

Bates, Robert H. Prosperity and Violence: The Political Economy of Development. W.W. Norton.

Bluffstone, R.A. (1995). The Effect of Labour Market Performance on Deforestation in Developing Countries under Open Access: An Example from Rural Nepal. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 29, 42-63.

Bowles P and X-Y Dong (1999). Enterprise Ownership, Enterprise Organization, and Worker Attitudes in Chinese Rural Industry: Some New Evidence. Cambridge Journal of Economics Volume 23 (1): 1-20.

Boyko, M., Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R. W. (1996). A Theory of Privatization. Economic Journal. Volume 106 (435): 309-19.

Clague, Christopher. Institutions and Economic Development: Growth and Governance in Less Developed and Post-Socialist Countries.

Coase, R. (1960). The Problem of Social Cost, Journal of Law and Economics 3 (1): 1-44

Gautam, AP., Shivakoti, and Webb. (2004). A Review of Forest Policies, Institutions, and Changes in Resource Condition in Nepal. International Forestry Review. Volume 6 (2).

Hussein, K., Sunberg and Seddan (1999). Increasing Violent Conflict between Herders and Farmers in Africa: Claims and Evidence. Development Policy Review. Vol. 17, pp. 397-418.

Khan, M. H. (2004). Power, Property Rights and the Issue of Land Reform: A General Case Illustrated with Reference to Bangladesh. Journal of Agrarian Change. January and April 4 (1-2): 73-106.

Storey, Andy (1999). Economics and Ethnic Conflict: Structural Adjustment in Rwanda. Development Policy Review, Volume 17.

See Related: Hey Korea, You May Miss Being a “Developing” Country…, Adriatic Institute vs. the World Bank, When Financial Institutions Collapse, State-Sanctioned Incitement to Genocide: What Can Be Done?, International Aid Transparency Initiative, Himalayan region to adopt environment-friendly technologies, Poverty and Inequality, Poor in Developing Countries are Victims of Our Mistakes (Development Impacts of Financial Crisis), and Rich to pay the poor to preserve forests?

[tags]property rights, economic development, growth strategies, development, third world, transitioning, capitalist development, world bank, Washington consensus, PWC, political economy, institutional growth, institutions, nepal, rwanda, genocide, environmental degradation, environmentalism, privatization, stabilization[/tags]

Gender & Globalization

Gender & Development Economics

Feminism has been vital in the struggle for solutions at the decentralized, local, and institutional level; it has fought discrimination and inequalities at many levels; it has changed institutions and decision making processes; it has incorporated new agendas in the politics of daily life; it has affected national policies; it has made an impact on international agendas; and it has been influential in first bringing human welfare to the center of debates on economic and social policy. (Beneria 2003, 89)

In development economics, concerns for gender equality, power imbalances, societal and cultural relevance, and female empowerment have been recognized as issues of importance to successful growth strategies. However, the gendered perspective has failed to embed itself inside the mindset that somehow seeks convergence without confronting the social and economic relations that create and continue inequity. Rather, gendered economics has often become a peripheral issue addressed as a side concern; at others times, abandoned in the spectrum of development economics. Indeed, though economics is often at the forefront of women-related issues, it has proven to be ‘the least open of the social sciences to the challenges raised by feminism’ (Beneria 1995, 1839). The current course of market liberalization pursued has created a chronic condition where gender disparities are prolonged and further institutionalized, rather than alleviated, by development policy. Pervasive male-dominated social and cultural norms have persisted, continuing the asymmetrical access to economic and institutional capabilities that would be ideally evenly distributed under globalization. Future development economic paradigms must incorporate the gendered standpoint to ensure connexion towards parity, equal access to increased economic, social, and political resources, and overall female empowerment.

One of the most heavily discussed aspects of economics has been the framework of the microeconomic household unit that originates around the idea of family and intra-household relations. The cornerstone of household neoclassical microeconomics – and the most aptly critiqued by feminist economics – has been the concept of household altruism. The neoclassical familial notion also bases itself on joint utility, where household members share, attain, and maximize equal amounts of utility. Economists of both Marxian and classical viewpoints treat the household as a wholly cooperative unit, indifferent to gender power imbalances in the attempt for gender neutrality (Folbre 245). Though most economic schools often address gender issues and would regard themselves as ‘gender neutral’, this neutrality arises from an explicit disregard of including gender in their framework of analysis. Pointed out by Diane Elson, “Most economic theory, whether orthodox or critical, is also male-biased, even though it appears to be gender neutral. The male bias arises because theory fails to take adequate account of the inequality between women as a gender and men as a gender” (38, 39). Neutrality, however, in the sense of freedom from all social values, is neither possible nor desirable and permits standard analytic techniques of mainstream economics to obscure the exercise of power (Harding 10).

While able to recognize the importance of the household, feminist economists have also picked up where others have not: that within this unit, issues of imbalance are stoked by overarching social and cultural normatives that formulate the basis and justification for intra-household economic disparities. Paradoxically, most neoclassical and critical economics see the household as an oasis, free from the dictations and ambitions that motivate the markets and as a construct built around a distinctly ‘non-market’ orientation of selflessness and collaboration. Indeed, it seems that “the invisible hand swept the moral economy into the home, where an imaginary world of perfect altruism could counterbalance the imaginary world of perfect self-interest in the market” (Folbre 252). In the same sense, the ability of money to monopolize labour power for ‘productive work’ depends on a system of non-monetary social relations to assemble labour power for ‘reproductive work’ (Elson 40). The orthodox tradition in economics has continued to rely on this basic link without questioning the consequences of its corresponding institutions and norms on human behavior and social goals (Beneria 2003, 68). Indeed, it appears that the neoclassical method seems unable and unsuitable for ‘capturing the relatively autonomous behavior’ of the reproductive economy (Walters 1877). The over-reliance and concentration of classical economics on the economic man as a self-interested organism has led to a conception failure of organizations and units, including the household, that are oriented primarily by other motivations.

Feminist economists have posited that intra-household relations must be seen as a continuation of patriarchal social normatives that seep into household economies. Rather than the gender division of labor, income, and access to other resources in the family as an optimal outcome of free choice, it may be seen as “the profoundly unequal accommodation reached between individuals who occupy very different social positions with very different degrees of social power” (Elson 38). The experience of subordination makes people less likely to have a well-defined preference function and dispose people to shape their preferences to what is available, rather than for what they want. Social norms constrain the choices that people make about division of labor in the family (Elson 38). Access to resources has also remained skewed along gender lines, including access to education and nutrition. Girls and mothers in particular in areas of the developing world receive a smaller proportion of necessary calories and protein than do men (Folbre 249). Typically, the division of labor in the household remains rigid along gender lines and consequently women often encounter a double-work burden scenario when they enter the productive economy, yet still remain entirely responsible for the reproductive economy (Blin 5). Even if displaced from the productive sector, men do not usually take on the responsibilities of reproductive work, leaving women to the substantial burden of both productive and reproductive work (Walters 1977).

Further, the dominance of females in the household economy has led to an invisibility of productivity that is done outside of the formal markets, creating a significant gap in amount of work done primarily by females and work recognized by formal economic channels. This is most recognizable on the macro level, where economic data excludes the reproductive economy and on the meso and macro levels, where neo-classical analysis excludes gender (Elson 36). Macroeconomics includes paid work but excludes unpaid work, an important consideration because of the rigidities associated with both. Gender has a predominant influence on the organization of the reproductive sector because of inflexibility in the division of labor and its coordination in informal, noncommercial spheres (Walters 1870). According to a survey done by the United Nations Development Programme in 1995, unaccounted work done in the reproductive economy accounts to $16 trillion, or 70 percent, of total world output. Of this $16 trillion, $11 trillion or 69 percent, represent women’s work (Beneria 2003, 74). In parallel to market expansion and the process of globalization, a large proportion of the population engages in unpaid production that is only indirectly linked to the market. Women are disproportionately concentrated in the unpaid sector that includes agricultural family labor, particularly in subsistence farming in developing economies (Beneria 2003, 74). Through this gap comes profound underestimation of household work, leading to public policy that undercuts this economy through the debilitation of social welfare programs that increase expenditure and exertion in the ‘invisible economy’.
Though the success of the macro economy is often reliant on the household economy, macro policy is typically formulated without regard to implications for healthcare, nutrition, and other aspects that will affect the reproductive economy. Macro-policy generally takes the reproductive economy for granted, assuming it can continue to function adequately no matter how its relation to the productive economy is disrupted. Economic policy that stress rolling back the state and liberating market forces give scant consideration to how this will impact the reproductive economy (Elson 41, 42). Since it is women who undertake most of the work in the reproductive economy, this is equivalent to assuming that there is an unlimited supply of unpaid female labour, able to compensate for any adverse changes resulting from macro-economic policy, so as to continue to meet the basic needs of their families and communities (Elson 42). When social services are reduced, eliminated, or privatized, programs that give women the ability to enter the labor market, such as state-funded healthcare or childcare, are diminished and women’s incomes tend to decrease (Howes 1907). Ironically, shortage of labor, specifically female workers, has been a frequent ailment of rapidly growing economies like those in Singapore and Mauritius (Walters 1876).

The efforts of policy and market reform fail to include a gendered perspective as well. While individual and micro-economies can be explicitly gendered, markets and firms are not characteristically conceptualized as gendered in a comparable way, though they may operate in ways that are particularly constraining and disadvantageous to women (Elson 38). Political, cultural, and social institutions and monetary relationships that are not in themselves intrinsically gendered nonetheless become bearers of gender (Elson 39). At the meso and macro level, the operation of markets, firms, and public sector agencies are gendered via the social norms and networks which are functional to the efficient operation of institutions (Elson 39). Policy reform, often trying to ameliorate gender role rigidity, will reflect a male hegemony by the social norms they situate themselves on (Elson 40). Even though policy reforms may not be male-biased by design, they will be male-biased indirectly by omission (Elson 40). This provides a difficult basis for seeing substantive change: gender inequality remains entrenched in key domains, especially in the labor market and in political decision-making, which is critical for developing the policy environment for gender equality (Grown 204). Often the current development economics field sees an unequivocal link between macro-level economic growth and alleviation of poverty and social problems. At times the economic development and its resulting social transformations are ambiguous at best: the progress that has been made toward gender equality and women’s empowerment is partial, has benefits and costs, and may not be sustainable (Grown 204). Policy reform aimed at aiding the disadvantaged and disempowered, who are often female, typically leave out the gendered perspective, creating a considerable gap where macro-oriented development transformation will fail.

Significantly, social and cultural normatives have continued to foster economic inequities between males and females in the developing world, despite rapid market liberalization and neoclassical belief that barriers to entry and discrimination would be eradicated with free markets. The process of globalization for the developing world has often meant engaging in export oriented industries, inducing a feminization of the labor force, primarily facilitated by the growth in manufacturing and service industries. This has meant a transformation of the labor force that on the surface implies a greater access to relatively high paid labor for females. The classic example has been the clothing industry, that’s global work force is two thirds female, and accounts for one fifth of the total world female labor force in manufacturing (Joekes 20). While women possess a competitive advantage in the feminization of the labor force, the advantage stems from negative gender norms, discrimination, and exploitative conditions (Blin 5). Indisputably, feminization has been connected to the “deterioration of working conditions and as part of the race to the bottom resulting from global competition” (Beneria 2003, 82). Thus, although women may formally be able to participate in markets, they tend to find themselves excluded from the traditional business-social networks. Similarly, although women may formally be able to participate in paid employment in the private sector, they tend to find themselves excluded from skilled and professional positions, which obtain higher incomes (Elson 40). Caren Grown sees a inherent hierarchy of average earnings and poverty risk associated with the segmentation of the labor force: formal wage employees are at the top (highest average earnings and lowest poverty risk), the self-employed in the middle, and casual wageworkers at the bottom (lowest earnings and highest poverty risk) (205). Women in developing countries are crowded into the casual wageworker bracket, creating a situation that possesses a dual hazard, as women’s low wages are often a source of competitive advantage for developing countries, illustrating therefore why it is so complicated to implement policies that increase women’s market power (Grown 206). Walters recapitulates this quandary succinctly, stating that gender segmentation is maintained in developing economies regardless of large numbers of women entering the labor force because increased female participation that ‘does not undermine male power’ in the formal and informal economy is seen as acceptable (1877). Despite the belief that globalization would bring about social modernization and homogeneity, markets and economies continue to reflect harmful gender normatives that are embedded and entrenched.

Persistent gender inequalities are particularly exemplified in regional contexts where cultural and social-wide reactions to globalization have adjusted or pressured existing relations. In the oft-heralded free-market prototypes of East Asia, economic growth was often correlated to the degree of gender wage gaps and the Asian economies with the most rapid growth had the widest wage gaps (Beneria 2003, 83). In the Islamic societies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), rejection of the free-market, globalized ideal has originated from disdain for the culturally transformative powers associated with it. Islamic societies often openly reject what they view as the “imposition of Western values and norms, many of which are transmitted through channels associated with global markets” (Beneria 2003, 69). Cultural preferences and limited job opportunities have kept many women out of the educational systems and labor force (Roudi-Fahimi 16). In 2006, 17 percent of the labor force was unemployed in MENA, compacted by a much higher rate of 30 percent among young women. Though the percentage of women in paid employment in MENA rose from 25 percent in 1980 to 30 percent in 2006, this still falls significantly lower than the world average of 52 percent (Roudi-Fahimi 15). Of the 10 million illiterate youth in MENA, 66 percent are female, symbolizing the unequal distribution of economic and educational resources between male and females in the region (Roudi-Fahimi 16). In Africa, where development sought to incorporate women into the economy, globalization has pushed them out, with the result that many African women now scrape together a living in the ‘survival economy’ of the informal sector (Horn 111). Crowding and segmentation also remain a severe problem, meaning that in Latin America, female labor force participation remains isolated in the service sector, while in Africa, women remain clustered in the agricultural sector (Howes 1905). A persistent global problem continues to be that developing countries themselves often do not recognize gender-based inequities as a source of failed development. Indicative of this is the fact that from 1995 to 2003, of the 125 reporting data on the economically active population, only 69 reported such data by sex or education (Grown 206). As hypothesized by Beneria, the links between gender and globalization should not be seen as responding only to structural and economic forces: they are also shaped by interaction between these forces and the different ways through which gender constructions have been reconstituted (2003, 77). Undeniably, employers and men benefit from low-cost female labor, with occupational segregation, labor market segmentation, and gender wage differential reproducing and perpetuating traditional patriarchal inequalities both within modern capitalist systems and developing economies (Folbre 251). The process of globalization and free market expansion can accelerate the transformation of gender roles, though this is often not a benevolent process. It often intensifies sexist or gender-based discriminatory and exploitative practices and reinstitutes tensions regarding individual freedom and collective security (Beneria 2003, 84). Though norms for gender roles have at times changed very rapidly, they have tended to changed in ways that ‘preserve male power’ (Walters 1877). Gender roles have continued to play an intrinsic role in substantiating and institutionalizing inequalities that persist in the developing regions.

In a world where transformative economic policy is often created by neo-liberal economists in the West and enacted by government actors in the developing countries, strategies have been conspicuously absent of a holistic approach to the social and cultural pressure created and exacerbated by such significant transformations. In the words of Lourdes Beneria, for economists, “the task of building a socially relevant economic theory should be a priority” (2003, 88). Classical and critical economics alike have departed from successfully incorporating the sociological, psychological, and cultural issues that continue to affect economics. As Horn bemoans, “caught in the simplicity of economic equations, planners have failed to see the social structures, power relations and knowledge systems embedded in communities where development theory is applied” (110). Feminist economics, which is socially and culturally pertinent, and the accompanying gendered view provide the opportunity for economics to be ‘socially relevant’. In order for development economics to work towards alleviating the poverty that plagues the third world and continues to most acutely affect females, the gendered outlook must be incorporated into mainstream economics.

Sources

Beneria, Lourdes. “Gender, Development and Globalisation” Chapter 2. Routledge London. 2003.

Beneria, Lourdes. “Toward a Greater Integration of Gender in Economics”. World Development. Volume 23 (11), pp. 1839-50. 1995.

Blin, Myriam. “Export-Oriented Policies, Women’s Work Burden and Human Development in Mauritius”. SOAS working papers. 2004.

Brainerd, Elizabeth. “Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 558, August 2002.

Brennan, David. “Defending the Indefensible? Culture’s Role in the Productive/Unproductive Dichotomy”. Feminist Economics. Volume 12 (3), pp. 403-425. 2006.

Cagatay, N., Diane Elson and C. Grown. “Gender, Adjustment and Macroeconomics”. World Development. Volume 23 (11). 1995.

Elson, Diane. “Gender Awareness in Modelling Structural Adjustment”. World Development Volume 23 (11), pp.1851-68. 1995.

Elson, Diane. “Micro, Meso, Macro: Gender and Economic Analysis in the Context of Policy Reform”. 1991.

Folbre, Nancy. “Hearts and Spades: Paradigms of Household Economics”. World Development, Volume 14 (2). 1986.

Grown, Caren. “Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World.” Feminist Economics. Volume 13 (2), pp. 203-207. 2007.

Harding, Sandra. “Can Feminist Thought Make Economics More Objective?”. Feminist Economics. Volume 1 (1). pp. 7-32. 1995.

Horn, Jessica. “Looking from the South, Speaking from Home: African Women Confronting Development.” Development, Volume 43 (4). pp. 32-39. 2007.

Howes, Candace and Ajit Singh. “Long Term Trends in the World Economy: The Gender Dimension.” World Development, Volume 23 (11). 1995.

Joekes, Susan. “Trade-related Employment for Women in Industry and Services in Developing Countries”. Occasional Paper 5, UNRISD and UNDP, Fourth World Conference on Women, Geneva. 1995.

Roudi-Fahimi, Farzaneh and Mary Mederios Kent. “The Middle East Population Puzzle”. Population Bulletin. 2007.

Walters, Bernard. “Engendering Macroeconomic: A Reconsideration of Growth Theory.” World Development. Volume 23 (11): pp. 1869-1880. 1995.

Written by Alec at SOAS for his MSc Political Economy of Development.

Related: Morality and Markets, “The Bottom Billion” by Paul Collier, IMF: Nations should use public funds to strengthen global financial system, Paul A. Volcker Address on Future Challenges, If I Were A Shill for Industry…., and Reproductive Tourism.

[tags]gender, globalization, africa, development economics, feminism, morality and ethics, distribution, females, inequality, politics, diane elson, alexander baldwin, SOAS, feminist economics, political economy[/tags]

The Demographic Transition and the Demographic Gift in the Middle East and North Africa

As emerging countries move into long-term economic growth and industrialization, their formative transitions typically display a corresponding shift from high mortality and death rates to low mortality and death rates. However, this demographic transition notably has not accompanied the economic development of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Instead, a glacial movement towards demographic stability has occurred in MENA, with only the past two decades witnessing substantive decreases in total fertility rates. With these decreases in fertility have come considerable changes, including a population bulge of youth. Those in this grouping find themselves increasingly disenfranchised politically and unable to attain long-term economic opportunities. Iran, a country of explicitly ‘Revolutionary Islamic’ politics, may provide insight into the demographic policies that could serve in the future as a model for practical natal strategies within the MENA and emerging Islamic framework. The absence of a significant demographic shift and corresponding source of economic growth within MENA must be evaluated from the social, cultural, and economic institutional impediments to successful progress.

While the majority of the developing world moved towards demographic transition in the 1960’s, only in the 1980’s did the MENA region began to experience sustained demographic declines. Up until the 1970’s, many considered MENA demographics isolated and outside the normal trends of population transition, ‘a self-proclaimed bastion of resistance to family change and natural fertilities’ (Courbage 1). Gradually, the ‘homogenous, high-fertility’ MENA region of the 1950’s with a total fertility rate around 7.0 was replaced by a ‘varied, dynamic region experiencing appreciable fertility change’ (Rashad 37). Later marriages, modern contraceptive practices, and inclusion of female rights and participation have been harbingers of a more widespread modernization of attitudes and economic outlooks (Courbage 4). Changes in marriage patterns also contributed to the fertility decline in the early 1980’s and 1990’s (Rashad 5). While the process succeeded on the economic and political fronts, Courbage warns the increasing and emergent influence of Islam on MENA societies may swing these cultures back to more pro-natal attitudes (17). The demographic transition in MENA represents an ‘interrupted process’, experiencing variations due to cyclical economic adjustments, government intervention in natal policy, and the region wide effects of oil shocks and unemployment rates.

Iran: A Model in Demographic Transition

While most countries in the MENA region have seen a persistence of above-average total fertility rates even into the 1990’s, Iran provides a stark example of how a proactive state anti-natal policy can affect total fertility rates. The first attempts at adopting a nation-wide birth control policy began with the creation of the Family Planning Program (FPP) in 1967 by the Imperial Government of Iran (Mehryar 3). The FPP became involved in highly sensitive legislation aimed at raising the age of marriage and curtailing male monopolization on the right of divorce (Mehryar 3). The state also attempted to improve the legal status of women and legalized induced abortion in 1973 (Aghajanian 704). The promotion of the national family planning agenda paralleled attempts by the Iranian state to enhance women politically and economically, including female suffrage, raising the legal age of marriage of women to 18, and encouraging women’s participation in government education, political, and health programs (Aghajanian 709). Combined with a paltry effort to seek approval from religious leadership, the FPP was seen by the populice as a secular effort directly contrary to traditional values of Iranian society (Mehryar 4). Numerically, the performance of the FPP of the Imperial Government was modest: population growth during 1967 to 1977 declined slightly from 3.1 to 2.7 percent and total fertility fell from 7.0 to 6.3 (Mehryar 4).

Ultimately, the rift between the FPP and traditional forces came to a head after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Viewed as inconsistent with the principles of Islam, the Family Protection Law and the FPP were suspended immediately following the revolution, leading to a decade markedly absent of state-sponsored family planning (Aghajanian 705). Leaders of the Islamic Republic showed no interest in population policy. Rather they encouraged early marriage and procreation, emphasizing the role of the female as mother and wife as an Islamic virtue (Aghajanian 713). ‘Strong undercurrents of Islamisation’ reinforced these changes that operated at the regulatory and socio-economic level and which sought to redefine the role of women in the economy and to encourage their retreat into the domestic area (Hakimian 2). The minimum age of marriage for females was lowered to nine years and the government issued new regulations, which dictated the public appearance of women and their clothing (Aghajanian 713).
A tense economic and political arena deeply contributed to the demographic outlook of the Islamic Republic. Following the Iraqi invasion of September 1981, the government imposed a universal rationing program. The program allowed generous coupons, covering a range of consumer goods, to each member of a household (Mehryar 8). Thus, the rationing system created an economic incentive for larger families in order to enjoy the increased rations allocated to them. This economic incentive and national political desires for a higher birthrate to contribute to the ’20 million man army’ of Iran encouraged increased fertility as a part of the general war effort. Indeed, the political, sociological, and psychological environment following the Iraqi invasion ‘may have been one of the major factors that transferred the issue of a large population and its rapid growth into a matter of comparative advantage rather than liability’ (Mehryar 8). When the 1986 Iranian census showed population had grown at a rate of 3.9 percent per year since 1976, Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Moosavi ‘openly hailed the enormous growth as a God sent gift’ (Mehryar 9).

After the end of Iran-Iraqi hostilities and the acceptance of the grave implications of the 1986 census by departments of the Iranian government, the Islamic Republic formally accepted the first elements of a national family planning policy in 1989. The government authorized the Ministry of Health and Medical Education to make free family planning services available to all married couples and to promote small family sizes (Mehryar 11). Following this mandate, the FPP was restarted in December 1989 and given three significant objectives: to encourage three to four years between pregnancies; to discourage pregnancy for woman younger than 18 and older than 35; and to limit family size to three children (Mehryar 12). This alteration in policy was buttressed by the 1993 Family Planning Bill, which removed economic incentives for high fertility and large families and created the legal framework for population control policy (Mehryar 13). The bill also required the addition of a population and family planning course to the official curriculum of all university departments (Mehryar 13). Following the 1994 population conference in Cairo, the government gave special consideration to educating adolescent girls through education, information, and premarital counseling and the promotion of healthy sexual relations within marital unions (Mehryar 15).

The results of the policy shift are clear and evident: from a total fertility rate of 7.2 in 1970, 5.6 in 1985, and 4.8 percent in 1990, Iran’s total fertility fell to a MENA region low of 2.0 in 2004 (Roudi-Fahimi 1). Women’s average age at first marriage increased from 19.7 in 1976 to 22.4 in 1996 (Roudi-Fahimi 1). By 1992, two-thirds of married women aged 15-49 were practicing some form of contraception, almost twice as high as the 1977 contraceptive prevalence rates of 37 percent (Mehryar 13). Most importantly, Iran was able to extend the population program successfully to the rural areas, where other MENA countries often lack control and influence. The urban-rural gap of use of modern contraceptives shrank from 250 percent in 1977, to 23 percent in 1992, and to only 12 percent in 1997 (Mehryar 14. The Ministry of Health and Medical Education reached out through a rural health network of 16,000 health houses covering 95 percent of the rural population. The network provided 91 percent of all family planning services in rural areas (Roudi-Fahimi 5). As of 2002, Iran was the only MENA country to have a state-sponsored condom factory. The factory’s largest customer, moreover, was the Iranian Ministry of Health, which distributed the condoms for free (Muir 1).

Government policy encouraged education and familiarity with modern contraceptive methods. Iran is thought to be the only country in the world where engaged couples cannot get a marriage license unless they show that they have attended contraception classes (Muir 2). Improvements in female education have helped to decrease fertility rates and increased proper use of modern contraceptives. From 1976 to 1996, the percentage of rural women who were literate increased from 17 to 62 percent and by 2000, more women than men entered universities (Roudi-Fahimi 7). The changes in Iran corroborate that committed policy and financial support, easily available planning services, and investment in health infrastructure and human development can induce and sustain rapid shifts in the demographic transition (Roudi-Fahimi 7, 8). In the words of the director of the United Nations Population Fund Mohammad Moslehuddin, “Developed countries took 35 to 40 years to reach low birth rate levels, but Iran took just a little bit more than a decade. That’s obviously unusual, unprecedented and exemplary in the Islamic context. Other developing countries – in particular, the Muslim developing countries of the world – should learn from the successful experience of the Islamic Republic” (Muir 3).

The Youth Bulge: An Economic and Demographic Challenge

While the region as a whole did not see decreases as significant or steep as Iran’s, the formulation of coherent and proactive natal policies in the MENA regions have been unaccompanied by sustained economic growth through the demographic dividend. The regional demographic transformation has meant that MENA countries currently are experiencing a population imbalance with a significant population of people born in the 1980’s, i.e., an abundance of working age young adults. Within the framework of the demographic transition, the demographic gift occurs when a larger share of the population is economically active – between the ages of 15 to 64 – therefore raising the labor force per capita, capital accumulation, and GDP per capita (Williamson 21). The youth population proportion is approximately 20 percent or higher in much of the MENA region with one in every three people in the region between the ages of 10 and 24 (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 1, 15). On average, MENA’s labor markets have had to absorb 30 million more adults of working age (Williamson 19).

This regional transformation presents an opportunity for economic growth fueled by a young and relatively large labor force. At the same time situation challenges ‘governments to prepare these young people for meaningful participation in society’ (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 15). A demographic bonus is attainable only when a ‘large young population is healthy, educated, trained’, and can be absorbed into the market economy (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 16). Indeed, labor economists expressed concern in the 1980’s and 1990’s about rapid labor force growth at a time ‘when the region’s labor markets were already had high levels of unemployment and limited work opportunities outside the public sector’ (Williamson 17). While investment and improvement in education has been considerable in the MENA region, it has not been complemented by better opportunities for gainful employment (Rashad 47). Notably, MENA shows demographic effects significantly below the Asian countries and only above those in Africa (Williamson 21). High unemployment, a mismatch of jobs and skill levels, excessive entitlements, political instability, and the lack of progress among social institutions have all led to the inability of the youth bulge to spur economic growth (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 3).

The Persistence of Gender Normatives and Their Economic Consequences

Contrary to the neoclassical formulation, the introduction of liberalization in the MENA economies has had minimal effect on gender roles. Instead, the rigid gender roles have persisted through market liberalization and demographic transition, despite the theory of unprofitability of continued discrimination. Though experiencing better access to education, females have been primarily excluded from the formal economy especially in the labor market. Despite the fact that the percentage of women in paid employment in MENA rose from 25 percent in 1980 to 30 percent in 2006, this still falls significantly lower than the world average of 52 percent (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 15). More indicative of the rigidity of gender roles are the rates of education and wage employment rates for single women between ages 15 to 49 in MENA countries: 62.4 percent in Algeria have primary education or less with only 6.6 percent employed; in Egypt, 29.4 percent have primary education or less with 12.25 working; and Yemen ranking lowest with 84.6 percent with primary education or less and an astonishing 2.99 engaged in paid labor (Rashad 47).

The disenfranchisement and disempowerment of half of the population has had severe consequences on economic growth and on the deficiency of the demographic dividend. As Rashad explains, for economic progress to be equally shared and to result in the improvement of quality of life, ‘societal concerns with reduction of population size should be paralleled with equal investment in women’s needs’ (47). This investment needs to be made to empower women, upgrade and expand their choices, and foster more balanced relations, especially for the increasing numbers of single women, for whom ‘access to wage earning work is an emotional and emotional necessity’ (Rashad 47). However, cultural preferences and limited job opportunities have kept many women out of the educational systems and labor force (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 16). In 2006, 17 percent of the labor force was unemployed in MENA, with a much higher rate of 30 percent among young women (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 17). Of the 10 million illiterate youth in MENA, 66 percent are females, encapsulating the educational inequality that helps perpetuate economic inequality in the region (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent 16). Further, while increased government effort has successfully restrained population growth, there has been an absence of serious investment to address constrained resources among women and youth populations. With these two segments of the population deprived of full economic resources the MENA region has had only a marginal improvement of the quality of life (Rashad 54).

Conclusion

The past two decades in the MENA region have witnessed a steady but slow decline in total fertility rates while experiencing instability and contraction in the economic arena, a stiff departure from the boom expected. Continued demographic progress will be realized if countries in MENA can duplicate the achievement of the Iranian family planning program, which Mehryar regards as an exceptional model because of the integration of family planning with primary health care, the removal of socioeconomic barriers to contraceptive supplies, the involvement of men and religious leaders, and most importantly, the removal of physical and ideological barriers to family planning (18). Currently, however, the progress towards demographic transition and its correlated economic dividend have been offset by high unemployment rates, gender role inflexibility, and continued economic and political volatility. In the words of Williamson, to realize the demographic gift, MENA must ‘devote considerable attention to strengthening its financial, legal, and political institutions while simultaneously adopting a coherent set of long-term economic policies’ (51). While on the sole basis of future demographic projections, MENA will have an opportunity to raise its per capita GDP, governments will have to show a stronger commitment to investing in their societies and proactively moving to break down barriers to entry, specifically the deleterious cultural restrictions that prevent full participation of females in the economy.

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Muir, Jim. “Condoms help check Iran birth rate”. BBC News. April 24, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1949068.stm

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Written by Alec at SOAS for his MSc Political Economy of Development.

Related: Turkey Launches Islamic Reformation, Iran’s Tae Kwon Do Follies, Sharia Law: Gallup Poll 50,000 across Muslim World, and “What did that goodwill get us?”.

[tags]demographic transition, middle east, mena, north africa, demographic gift, economics of fertility, contraception, education, female labor, islamic culture, education[/tags]