Publication: Ten Years After Morocco's Family Code Reforms : Are Gender Gaps Closing?
Loading...
Published
2014-04
ISSN
Date
2014-11-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
In 2004, the Government of Morocco (GoM) made major amendments to its family code, known as the Moudawana, which covers personal status issues such as marriage, divorce, alimony, child support, child custody, and inheritance. These reforms increased the rights of women within the family, and should boost women s agency beyond family matters, for example increasing control of economic assets. The revisions followed a process of relatively open public debate with much of the discussion driven by women s civil society organizations (CSOs). It does suggest that women have made gains in determining who to marry, and are more able to access to divorce without renouncing their financial assets. On many other key issues, such as the use of stipulations in marriage contracts to increase women's decision-making within marriage and control of economic assets, as well as the extent to which community property regimes have been adopted by married couples, the lack of data prevents effective measurement of progress. Plans of the Ministry of Justice and Liberty to measure implementation of the Moudawana linked with the charter for the reform of the judicial system will hopefully provide the GoM a useful tool in ensuring further narrowing of gender equality gaps.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Prettitore, Paul. 2014. Ten Years After Morocco's Family Code Reforms : Are Gender Gaps Closing?. MENA knowledge and learning quick notes
series;no. 121. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20550 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Family Systems, Political systems, and Asia’s ‘Missing Girls’ : The Construction of Son Preference and Its Unraveling(2009-12-01)Son preference is known to be found in certain types of cultures, that is patrilineal cultures. But what explains the fact that China, South Korea, and Northwest India manifest such extreme child sex ratios compared with other patrilineal societies? This paper argues that what makes these societies unique is that their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organize and administer their citizens. The interplay of culture, state, and political processes generated uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. The paper also argues that the advent of the modern state in these settings has unraveled the underpinnings of the rigid patrilineal rules, and unleashed a variety of forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state has powerful tools for incorporating and managing its citizenry, rendering patrilineages a threat rather than an asset for the state. Secondly, the modern state has brought in political, social, and legal reforms aimed to challenge traditional social hierarchies, including the age and gender hierarchies of the kinship system. Thirdly, industrialization and urbanization have ushered in new modes of social organization, which reduce the hold of clans and lineages. Studies of the impact of the media suggest that states can accelerate the resultant decline in son preference, through media efforts to help parents perceive that daughters can now be as valuable as sons.Publication Strengthening Economic Rights and Women's Occupational Choice : The Impact of Reforming Ethiopia's Family Law(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11)This paper evaluates the impact of strengthening legal rights on the types of economic opportunities that are pursued. Ethiopia changed its family law, requiring both spouses' consent in the administration of marital property, removing the ability of a spouse to deny permission for the other to work outside the home, and raising women's minimum age of marriage. Thus both access to resources and the removal of restrictions on employment served to strengthen women's bargaining position within the household and their ability to pursue economic opportunities. Although this reform now applies nationally, it was initially rolled out in the two chartered cities and three of Ethiopia's nine regions. Using nationally representative household surveys from just prior to the reform and five years later allows for a difference-in-difference estimation of the reform's impact. The analysis finds that women were relatively more likely to work in occupations that require work outside the home, employ more educated workers, and in paid and full-time jobs where the reform had been enacted, controlling for time and location effects. As the relative increase in women's participation in these activities was 15-24 percent higher in areas where the reform was carried out, the magnitude of the impact is significant too.Publication Intrahousehold Bargaining and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries(Washington, DC, 2013-01)Many key development outcomes depend on women's ability to negotiate favorable intrahousehold allocations of resources. Yet it has been difficult to clearly identify which policies can increase women's bargaining power and result in better outcomes. This paper reviews both the analytical frameworks and the empirical evidence on the importance of women's bargaining power. It argues that there is sufficient evidence from rigorous studies to conclude that women's bargaining power does affect outcomes. But in many specific instances, the quantitative evidence cannot rigorously identify causality. In these cases, a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence may suggest policy levers. Taken together, there are sufficient data in place to support a greatly expanded focus on intrahousehold outcomes and bargaining power. Additional data at the individual level will allow for further and more detailed research. A growing literature supports the current conventional wisdom -- namely, that the patterns of evidence suggest that women's education, incomes, and assets all are important aspects of women's bargaining power.Publication Women's Legal Rights over 50 Years : Progress, Stagnation or Regression?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09)Using a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal documents in one's own name, and to have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. Progress in reducing these constraints has been dramatic -- half of the constraints documented in the 1960s had been removed by 2010. However, some sticky areas persist where laws have not changed or have even regressed. The paper analyzes potential drivers of reforms. A significant finding is that the relationship with a country's level of development and the extent of its reforms is not straightforward. For the first half of the sample, there was no systematic connection; only in the last 25 years have increases in income been associated with higher probabilities for reform, but only in lower-income countries. With the remaining constraints as prevalent in middle- as low-income countries, increased growth is not necessarily going to spark additional reforms. Clearer patterns emerge from the momentum created by international conventions, such as the Committee to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women's political representation at the national level, mobilization of women's networks, and increasing labor force participation in sectors that provide a voice for women, which are positive forces for change. Conversely, conflict and weak rule of law can entrench a discriminatory status quo. And much is at stake; strengthening women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes that can benefit society as a whole.Publication The Illusion of Inclusion : Women's Access to Rights in Northern Kenya(World Bank, Nairobi, 2008-12)This paper shows how official laws concerning justice for women, can be difficult to apply when they are not socially acknowledged, contextualized, or received, and therefore have minimal impact on women's lives. It demonstrates that the inclusion of women through international conventions, domestic legal reform, and gender quotas in participatory processes, is illusory. While these are all important instruments in women's empowerment, the paper calls upon access to justice practitioners and policy makers to place equal emphasis on fostering the practical implementation of laws and to emphasize opportunities for increased equality in informal systems.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Taxes, Spending, and Equity: International Patterns and Lessons for Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-17)Taxes and public spending underpin the basic administration of government and finance the human capital and infrastructure investments needed for economic growth. They can also have a significant and immediate impact on poverty and inequality. The question of how public finance can support longer-term growth objectives while promoting equity has become even more important in recent years, given the high fiscal deficits and debt levels most countries emerged with in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the increasing cost of debt and the need to restart environmentally sustainable growth while helping households address the learning losses and other social scars caused by the pandemic. This paper examines the global evidence on which households pay which taxes and who benefits from what spending, and critically, the net effect on different households across the income distribution. The aim is to identify the patterns and lessons that emerge for designing progressive fiscal policies. A global dataset of 96 countries is assembled, spanning all regions of the world and all national income levels, grounded in the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) approach to fiscal incidence.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Gender Role Attitudes, Perceived Norms, and the "Double Burden'' in Morocco(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-05)To what extent do attitudes and perceived norms around household roles hinder the emergence of more gender-equal distributions of labor in Morocco Moroccan women undertake a disproportionate share of unpaid household and care labor and participate in the labor force at low rates. Yet everyday practices are shifting, and normative expectations may be as well. From an online survey of predominantly urban, employed Moroccans, this paper finds that respondents aspire for men to be equal contributors in care tasks. Yet, unpaid labor burdens remain highly unequal, respondents disfavor men taking primary responsibility for cooking or cleaning, and women's share of household labor correlates with perceptions of what men prefer more than with individuals' actual preferences. Results from a conjoint survey experiment measuring preferences around employment and the household division of labor confirm respondents' interest in more egalitarian relations in principle, but also suggest that strong preferences for a male breadwinner family model will continue to drive an unequal distribution of labor at home.Publication Intrahousehold Bargaining and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-02)Many key development outcomes depend on women s ability to negotiate favorable intrahousehold allocations of resources. Yet it has been difficult to clearly identify which policies can increase women's bargaining power and result in better outcomes. This paper reviews both the analytical frameworks and the empirical evidence on the importance of women's bargaining power. It argues that there is sufficient evidence from rigorous studies to conclude that women's bargaining power does affect outcomes. But in many specific instances, the quantitative evidence cannot rigorously identify causality. In these cases, a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence may suggest policy levers. Taken together, there are sufficient data in place to support a greatly expanded focus on intrahousehold outcomes and bargaining power. Additional data at the individual level will allow for further and more detailed research. A growing literature supports the current conventional wisdom -- namely, that the patterns of evidence suggest that women s education, incomes, and assets all are important aspects of women s bargaining power.Publication Direct and Indirect Impacts of Transport Mobility on Access to Jobs: Evidence from South Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-12)Access to jobs is essential for economic growth. In Africa, unemployment rates are notably high. This paper reexamines the relationship between transport mobility and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on the direct and indirect effects of transport connectivity. As predicted by theory, wages are influenced by the level of commuting deterrence. Generally, higher earnings are associated with longer commute times and/or higher commuting costs. Local accessibility is also important, especially for individuals with time constraints. Both direct and indirect impacts are found to be significant in South Africa, where job accessibility has been challenging since the end of apartheid. For the direct impact, the wage elasticity associated with commuting costs is significant. Returns on commute are particularly high for women. Local accessibility to socioeconomic facilities, such as shops and health services, is also found to have a significant impact, consistent with the concept of mobility of care. To enhance employment, therefore, it is crucial to connect people not only to job locations but also to various socioeconomic points of interest, such as markets and hospitals, in an integrated manner. This integration will enable individuals to spend more time working and commuting longer distances.