Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Aksoy, Ozan; Billari, Francesco C.

doi:10.1086/696193

Cited by 32 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…There is no evidence for this explanation. Aksoy and Billari (2018) show that an AK Parti governance has no effect on sub-national net immigration of women.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

The politics behind the veil

Aksoy¹,

Gambetta²

2019

Preprint

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Using a natural experiment, we find that in provinces where Turkey's Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) just won the election in 2004, women, including those who are weakly-or non-religious, now veil far more than in provinces in which AKP just lost, the more so the poorer they are. This effect, as we predict, does not occur for praying regularly which is a more costly and harder to observe practice. We argue that veiling is higher in AKP provinces not only because of a generic aim to conform to the stricter mores fostered by the victorious party. We find that those who veil, particularly those in AKP provinces who are not pious, are more politically active than those who do not veil. This may be an indication that veiling could partly be a strategic response to policies, which favour those who are or appear pious. Our study suggests that observable religious practices may have their independent dynamics driven by the pursuit of instrumental goals. Our results also suggest that parties with a religious ideology have an advantage over their secular counterparts in solving the clientelistic information problem, for they can rely on religious symbols for screening and signalling.

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“…There is no evidence for this explanation. Aksoy and Billari (2018) show that an AK Parti governance has no effect on sub-national net immigration of women.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

The politics behind the veil

Aksoy¹,

Gambetta²

2019

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…The opposite pattern observed for the women ages 20-29 might have to do with the massive wave of welfare programs launched by the ruling AKP party and the discourse that emphasizes more traditional family behaviors and pronatalism openly advocated by President Erdogan (Aksoy and Billari, 2018;Greulich et al, 2016). As a consequence of these views and policies, the fertility decline in Turkey, which started in 1960s has stalled and subsequently slightly reversed under the AKP's rule (Aksoy and Billari, 2018). Table 3 displays estimates obtained from a specification that includes a set of timevarying province characteristics in addition to all those fixed effect and trend terms.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the expansion of the FMP coincided with periods of robust economic growth experienced during most of the 2000s and the government's initiatives to increase education, most of which might have benefitted girls (Cin and Walker, 2016). The opposite pattern observed for the women ages 20-29 might have to do with the massive wave of welfare programs launched by the ruling AKP party and the discourse that emphasizes more traditional family behaviors and pronatalism openly advocated by President Erdogan (Aksoy and Billari, 2018;Greulich et al, 2016). As a consequence of these views and policies, the fertility decline in Turkey, which started in 1960s has stalled and subsequently slightly reversed under the AKP's rule (Aksoy and Billari, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socialized Healthcare and Women’s Fertility Decisions

Cesur¹,

Güneş²,

Tekin³

et al. 2019

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.This paper examines the effect of a nationwide healthcare reform implemented in Turkey on women's fertility decisions. The Family Medicine Program (FMP), introduced in 2005, provided a wide-range of primary healthcare services, free of charge, and achieved universal access by matching each citizen to a specific family physician, who operates at neighborhood clinics, called Family Health Centers, on a walk-in basis. Although reducing fertility was not specified among the goals of the reform, reproductive-health and family-planning services have been covered under the FMP. To establish causality, we exploit the staggered rollout of the FMP implementation across Turkish provinces over time using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy. Our estimates indicate that the FMP significantly reduced childbearing among both teenagers and women ages 20-29. These results can be explained by increased access to and reduced cost of reproductive-health and family-planning services. However, the patterns in which the program effect has evolved over time differs between the two groups of women in a way that provides additional insights about the mechanisms. For teenagers, the FMP had a direct effect on childbearing, reflected by an immediate and rapidly-increasing pattern, which is not surprising given the broad agreement about the negative consequences of teenage childbearing among government and public health officials, including those in Turkey. For women ages 20-29, however, the program had a gradual and slowly-increasing effect, which is consistent with an empowerment channel. This should be interpreted as an unintended consequence of the program because, if anything, Turkey is a country where the government's position is to encourage fertility behavior and discourage birth control practices among women at prime childbearing ages. JEL Classification:I13, J13

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“…Veiling had been banned in public offices, including courts, military facilities, Parliament, and public universities. Political Islam has long been in the Turkish political arena, but the 2002 general elections marked a significant turning point in Turkish politics (Aksoy and Billari 2017). In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the national elections with an explicit Islamist platform.…”

Section: Empirical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the aforementioned rising influence of political Islam (Aksoy and Billari 2017), Turkey is still one of the most liberal Muslim-majority countries. In modern Turkey, formal regulations on veiling are far less strong compared with other Muslim-majority countries.…”

Section: Empirical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues

Völker¹

2017

SocScience

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Using Turkey's 2013 Demographic and Health Survey, I find that among married women, having a single child as opposed to no children is associated with an approximately five-percentagepoint increase in the likelihood of religious veiling. Furthermore, the likelihood of religious veiling increases as the number of a woman's children increases. Robustness checks show that these associations are rather stable across the Muslim world. In addition, I use the sex of a woman's first child as a natural experiment and find that in Turkey, having a son versus a daughter increases the likelihood of religious veiling by 2.2 percentage points. In contrast, having a child and the sex of the first child have no significant effects on unobservable religious behaviors, traditional values, and gender norms. These results are consistent with the hypothesis derived from signaling theory that women use veiling strategically to foster family reputation.

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Political Islam, Marriage, and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Cited by 32 publications

References 51 publications

The politics behind the veil

The politics behind the veil

Socialized Healthcare and Women’s Fertility Decisions

Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues

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