The Effect of Women s Education on Terrorism: Examining a Causal Chain Involving Fertility and Young Male Populations. Deepa Bholanath Dhume

Transcription

1 The Effect of Women s Education on Terrorism: Examining a Causal Chain Involving Fertility and Young Male Populations Deepa Bholanath Dhume A senior thesis submitted to the Department of Economics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Bachelors of Arts with honors Harvard College Cambridge, Massachusetts March 17, 2005

2 Abstract One quantifiable channel through which women s education may affect terrorism is through the effect of women s education on fertility and population demographics. Separate analyses on data from developing countries and the Middle East/North Africa region show that increasing women s education reduces fertility and eventually reduces the number of young males in society. Prevailing views that a population with a large number of young males may be prone to supplying terrorists are supported by a theoretical analysis of a rational choice model of the decision to participate in terrorist activities. However, evidence shows that a reduction in the young male share of the population does not reduce terrorism. This paper also uses fertility as an instrument for the native young male share of the population and shows that the native young male share is also not related to terrorism in the developing world or in the Middle East/North Africa region. One possible interpretation of these findings is that, because the number of terrorists in a given population is small compared to the pool of potential recruits, an increase in the supply of total or native young males has no effect on the number of terrorists. While there may be effects of women s education on terrorism through political and social channels, women s education does not reduce terrorism through its effect on fertility and demographics.

3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Literature Review 5 3. Economic Theory Methods Data Description Results Developing Countries Results Middle East and North Africa Conclusion 50 References 53 Appendix: Summary and Regression Tables 55

4 1. Introduction To date, efforts to identify the determinants of terrorism have focused on religious affiliation, education, income, demographics, and forms of government within countries. Because both terrorism and the low social status of women in the Middle East are often scrutinized, it makes sense to determine whether there is a link between the two other than the prevalence of Islam. Studies on the interaction between women s education and national security include hypotheses that women s education may affect their intake of information from government, religious, or other sources; change the way women raise their children; or alter political trends within a country by increasing women s political participation. While many of the larger effects of women s education on society are difficult to quantify, one measurable impact is the effect of women s education on fertility. Studies have shown that an increase in women s education reduces individual and aggregate fertility rates, which affects the age structure of a country s population. One strongly held belief about the determinants of terrorism is that having a large proportion of young males in the population increases the likelihood of terrorism. A Newsweek article published shortly after 9/11 by Fareed Zakaria proposes the idea that the existing demographic structure of the Middle East may have contributed to the recent wave of terrorism: A huge influx of restless young men in any country is bad news. When accompanied by even small economic and social change, it usually produces a new politics of protest. In the past, societies in these circumstances have fallen prey to a search for revolutionary solutions In the case of the Arab world, this revolution has taken the form of an Islamic resurgence. 1

5 In this paper, I show empirically that while women s education does affect population age structures, the resulting demographic change does not significantly affect terrorism. First, I show that an increase in women s education in developing countries results in a decline in fertility. Since countries with high fertility rates generally have a large proportion of the population in the younger age groups, this reduction in the fertility rate changes the demographic shape of a country s population over time towards having fewer young people. This demographic shift could reduce terrorism through multiple channels. By extending the economic model of an individual s decision to participate in criminal activities to model the terrorism participation decision, we can see that young males are the most likely demographic to participate in terrorist activity. Furthermore, it is possible that there are aggregate effects such that having more young males in society increases the frustration felt by young males seeking jobs and mates. With fewer young males in a country, the pool of frustrated young men from which terrorist organizations can recruit is reduced, potentially leading to lower levels of terrorism. Contrary to these hypotheses, my results show that after an increase in women s education has reduced the proportion of young males in society, there is no reduction in terrorism. Further analysis of the relationship between terrorism and the native young male share of the population (the young male population excluding immigrants) shows that a decrease in the native young male share also does not decrease terrorism. To study the steps in this causal chain, I conduct a cross-country analysis using four regressions. The first regression will examine the effect of women s education on fertility using data from the World Bank s World Development Indicators database. The 2

6 second regression uses a lagged value of fertility to show that a reduction in fertility will eventually result in a lower share of the population in the young male demographic. In this regression, I use the same fertility data from the World Bank along with young male percentage data from the United Nations World Population Prospects Database. In the third regression, I relate the young male share of the population to terrorism using data on terrorism from the ITERATE database created by Edward Mickolus. 1 Finally, because we might think that native young males are more likely to participate in terrorism, I examine the effect of the native young male share of the population on terrorism, as distinct from the total young male share that includes natives and immigrants. This final regression uses a lagged value of fertility as an exogenous instrument and shows that a smaller share of native young males in the population also does not reduce terrorism. Because terrorism is a phenomenon that may be affected by a number of economic and political factors, I include a number of controls in all of the above regressions. These controls include measures of democracy, religion, wealth, education, ethnic diversity, and gender equality. Because the policy recommendations that can result from my research are most applicable to countries with initially low levels of women s education and high levels of fertility, I have confined my analysis to two sets of data. The first set includes all developing countries, defined by the United Nations World Population Prospects database to include all the countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia (excluding Japan), the 1 Because I am using the ITERATE data on terrorist events, I also use the working definition of terrorism posed by the authors of ITERATE. That definition is: the use, or threat of use, of anxiety-inducing, extranormal violence for political purposes by any individual or group, whether acting for or in opposition to established governmental authority, when such action is intended to influence the attitudes and behavior of a target group wider than the immediate victims and when, through the nationality or foreign ties of its perpetrators, its location, the nature of its institutional or human victims, or the mechanics of its resolution, its ramifications transcend national boundaries. 3

7 Caribbean, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The second set of data includes a broad definition of the Middle East/North Africa region (MENA), ranging from Algeria to Pakistan and including many of the Central Asian countries. Tables 10 through 13 include additional results for the more developed countries and for smaller subsets of data organized by continent. Table 14 lists the countries that are included in each of these data sets. My research contributes to the terrorism literature by examining both individual motivations for terrorism and societal factors that may make a country more likely to be affected by terrorism. I also contribute to the literature on women s education and demographics by estimating the effect of women s education on terrorism through this demographic channel. While my results challenge the hypothesis that women s education will reduce terrorism by changing demographic structure, it is still true that women s education is beneficial for development in general. Furthermore, the effect of women s education on other aspects of society, including politics and civil society, are less quantifiable but warrant further study. I begin this paper by reviewing the literature on women and terrorism in order to identify the channels through which women s status may affect terrorism. I will then develop the theory behind my particular identification strategy. Next, I will explain the empirical strategies used to identify the steps of the causal chain and the data used to test these theories. Finally, I include separate results for the developing countries and the Middle East/North Africa region before concluding with some thoughts on the regional and global implications of my research. 4

8 2. Literature Review Before 9/11, the study of terrorism was limited to a few political scientists and even fewer economists. When the attack on the World Trade Centers spurred popular interest in explaining and preventing terrorism, there was new attention given to the regimes under which terrorist networks thrived. With this attention came a renewed scrutiny of the lack of political and economic freedom for citizens and especially for women under these regimes. In parallel to popular interest, academic study of terrorism has also grown. Recent research has looked at the general correlates of terrorism, the relationship between religious and political freedoms and terrorism, and the effect of economic variables such as education and poverty on the likelihood of terrorist events. Quan Li and Drew Shaub (2004) have found that transnational terrorism is more likely to occur in countries with lower per-capita GDP. Simon Haddad and Hilal Khashan (2002) have shown that countries with a greater prevalence of political Islam generally show stronger support for terrorism. These studies paint a picture of terrorism growing under developing countries with Islamic regimes. Since these countries are often the same ones that are criticized for allowing or even promoting gender inequality, it would be useful to examine the possibility of a direct link between terrorism and the generally inferior economic, social, and political status of women in developing countries around the world. In general, the literature has been inconclusive on the overall effect of women s education on terrorism, mostly because of the difficulty in isolating the effect of an increase in women s education from other changes that may be taking place simultaneously. Some research emphasizes the demonstrated effectiveness of women s participation in conflict resolution and claim that an increase in women s education and 5

9 status would allow for more peace efforts. However, others argue that aggregate levels of education are unrelated to terrorism. One researcher even argues that women s education in particular may actually increase terrorism because educated women will be more likely to feel frustrated with the existing social or political atmosphere, increasing their likelihood of supporting terrorism as a means for change. Because these effects are difficult to uncover and quantify, I extend the literature by examining the measurable impact of women s education on terrorism through the effect of education on fertility and population demographics. Research on the relationship between women and terrorism has addressed a variety of channels through which education can affect women s beliefs, actions, and influence on society. A number of these studies rely on the characterization of women as members of society who are generally less aggressive and who prefer peaceful solutions to conflicts. Using this premise, some studies have shown that increased women s education or social status can result in increased political or nongovernmental organization involvement focused on promoting peace. In a report published by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2002) document women s participation in peace efforts worldwide and effectiveness in resolving conflict. In countries that suppress public action by women, efforts by women to promote peace may be thwarted. Furthermore, we might expect that male-dominated societies are more likely to experience conflict and violence. Mary Caprioli (2000) supports this claim empirically by showing that an increase in women s political, social, and economic status results in a decrease in international militarism. In her model, the premise that women are more peaceful is expressed through the mechanism of political 6

10 decision-making. The study relates the likelihood of militarized interstate disputes to general women s outcomes, including duration of female suffrage and percentage of women in parliament. Even after controlling for levels of wealth and democracy, having more women involved in the political process results in a lower likelihood of a state using force in international conflicts. Since the study of women and conflict has generally supported the idea that better women s outcomes will reduce the use of violence, it makes sense that the same relationship would hold true for terrorism. However, there have been two recent challenges to the assumption that better education and less poverty for women will result in less terrorism. Amy Caiazza (2001) points out that educated women are more likely to become frustrated with the economic and political constraints of their political regimes. If this frustration grows sufficiently, educated women may feel confined by political regimes enough to begin supporting terrorism. In the past, women have committed large and small terrorist acts ranging from the high-profile suicide bombing that resulted in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 to lower-profile participation of women in terrorist networks. Another avenue available to women who face limits on their public activism is to raise families committed to militaristic or terrorist causes and encourage their sons and husbands to engage in terrorist activity. Unlike in the earlier case of decision-making in interstate disputes, these examples suggest that increasing women s education without simultaneously improving domestic political and economic conditions can result in an increase in terrorism. Two empirical studies of the relationship between education and terrorism provide the second challenge to the hypothesis that better women s outcomes will reduce 7

11 terrorism. Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova (2003) do not focus on gender differences but use data from Israel and Palestine to show that educational attainment and income level do not affect the likelihood that a person will become a terrorist or support terrorist action. Since this study concentrates on individual effects, it may be the case that improvement in average income and aggregate education reduces terrorism. To examine this possibility, these same researchers run preliminary tests on a cross-country data set and tentatively assert that after controlling for civil liberties, the relative wealth and literacy rate of a country are not good predictors of terrorist events that take place within the country. Despite these empirical findings, the authors acknowledge that more cross-country comparison is needed, especially given the negative relationship between economic conditions and civil conflict, and the positive relationship between civil conflict and terrorism. Haddad and Khashan (2002) also use a sample of politically wellinformed people in Lebanon to examine opinions on the 9/11 attacks, and find no significant effect of income or education upon responses. The theories that have been posited so far provide a number of effects of women s education that could result in an overall positive or negative effect on terrorism. Since it is possible to measure women s involvement in the public arena of political decisionmaking, Caprioli (2000) is able to measure the effect of women s political participation on the use of violence in international disputes. Discerning the impact of women on terrorist networks is more difficult because the veiled nature of terrorist networks obscures the direct impact of women s participation. Therefore, rather than examining the direct participation of women in the terrorist networks, it is more feasible to compare general country characteristics with terrorist incidents within a given country. Some 8

12 measures of women s status that have not yet been studied in the context of terrorism are women s educational attainment, literacy rates, and labor force participation. However, since these measures are often strongly correlated with other country characteristics that are also associated with terrorism, including income and civil liberties, it is more useful to study a mechanism of women s influence that is unrelated to these factors. Many of the competing effects of women s education on terrorism discussed above are obscured by the secrecy surrounding terrorist networks. Measuring this effect is further complicated by the relationship of women s education to civil liberties, income, and other variables that may affect terrorism. However, one measurable mechanism through which women may affect terrorism is through their role in shaping the demographic profile of a country. Fertility is a measurable variable that is closely linked to women s rights and education. In the next section, I explain one causal chain that links women s education to terrorism. I begin by linking an increase in women s education to a reduction in fertility and go on to argue that a lower fertility rate today will later result in a smaller proportion of the population being in the critical age range of fifteen to twenty-four years old. To relate the young male share of the population to terrorism, I first apply an economic model of the decision to participate in criminal activity to terrorism to show that young males are the demographic most likely to engage in terrorism. Next, I examine the possible aggregate effects of the young male share on terrorism. Finally, I develop an extension of the model relating fertility rates specifically to the native young male share of the population. 9

13 3. Economic Theory Increased Education Reduces Fertility To examine the effect that women s education has on terrorism, I first look at the effect of women s education on fertility. In this study, I use the World Bank s database of World Development Indicators, which defines fertility as the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with prevailing age-specific fertility rates (World Bank, World Development Indicators 2004). There are a number of reasons why we would expect women s education and fertility to be negatively correlated. First, educated women have better access to contraceptive information, whether it comes in the form of general media information about fertility or from direct efforts by fertility reduction campaigns. Second, as Frances Vavrus and Ulla Larsen (2003) have shown, educated women use contraceptives more often and more effectively than uneducated women do. Third, educated women are more likely to delay marriage, which reduces the number of childbearing years in a woman s lifetime. Fourth, as educated women enter the workforce, they face a higher opportunity cost of childbearing. This opportunity cost can be measured as the foregone salary or career advancement opportunities that come with pregnancy, or less tangibly as the foregone self-fulfillment that women gain from a productive career. Fifth, women s education can have a positive effect on the social status of women within the immediate or extended family that increases their control over fertility decisions. Finally, other reasons why increased education may result in lower fertility may include the preference for more (and therefore more expensive) education 10

14 for children that increases the cost of childrearing, and the lower likelihood of reliance on children as a source of support in old age (Øystein Kravdal, 2002). In comparing aggregate levels of education and fertility across countries, we might suspect that a negative correlation between women s education levels and fertility indicates a more general trend of development, which raises both the level of human capital and the average age of the population. However, Vavrus and Larsen (2003) have used micro-level data in Tanzania and Uganda to demonstrate that there are negative effects of education upon women s fertility decisions at the individual level. Kravdal (2002) has gone a step further by using demographic and health surveys for twenty-two countries to distinguish the effect of individual education from that of aggregate levels of education on individual fertility decisions. Another concern we would have in identifying the effect of women s education on fertility would be that the education only reduces fertility through its effect on women s employment, which would imply that an increase in education would not reduce fertility in absence of labor market opportunities. If education only reduced fertility through a change in labor market opportunities, we would expect that uneducated women would have similar fertility rates in any country, and that the fertility rate for educated women would depend upon domestic labor market opportunities. In other words, we would expect similar fertility rates across countries for uneducated women and a divergence in fertility rates for educated women, depending on labor market opportunity. However, Anrudh Jain (1981) shows that fertility levels of educated women are much more similar than fertility levels for uneducated women, lending support to the argument that education will reduce fertility even in the absence of labor market opportunities. 11

15 Lower Fertility Reduces the Number of Young Males in Society In order to measure the effect of women s education on terrorism, I take the negative relationship between women s education and fertility and examine its effect on the next variable in the model: the number of young males in society as a percentage of the population. The link between fertility and the number of young males in society is relatively obvious when we consider fertility as a statistic that is highly correlated with population growth and the young male percentage as a statistic that reflects the age structure of a population. By definition, a high current fertility rate reflects the relatively large number of births. As these babies grow to become adults age 15-24, it makes sense that their cohort would be larger if the fertility rate at the time of their birth were higher. Because my theory rests on the prevalence of young males in society, attitudes about gender may affect the relationship between fertility and young male population share. In countries where male children are preferred to females, we would expect to see the effect of a high fertility rate magnified by the effect of actions based upon the preference for males, such as female infanticide. As these preferences have their largest effects when a child is very young, we would expect attitudes at the time of birth to have the largest effect on the later young male population, rather than the attitudes about gender at the time the population bulge reaches young adulthood. Inclusion of sex ratio data concurrent with fertility data improves the estimation of the relationship between fertility rates and the young male share of the population by controlling for the effect of gender attitudes on the prevalence of young males in society. Because sex ratio of the entire population may be affected by different rates of inward and outward migration of the two sexes, my analysis uses the sex ratio for the 0-15 year old population. This 12

16 population is a better measurement of gender preferences than the sex ratio of the entire population, because it is less affected by migration. Another control specific to the relationship between fertility and young male share is infant mortality. We would expect that women in countries with higher infant mortality would give birth to more children over their lifetime than the number of children they eventually want to raise, in order to compensate for the high mortality rates. In order to better relate fertility to the young male share of the population, I include data from the World Development Indicators on infant mortality as a control. Young Males and Terrorism: Individual Effects The final step in the causal chain linking women s education to terrorism is the relationship between young male share and terrorism. The hypothesis is that a higher percentage of the population in the male, year-old demographic range will cause an increase in terrorism. By applying the rational choice model, theory predicts that young males are the most likely demographic to participate in terrorist activities. 2 Given this prediction, it makes sense that having more young males in a country means that more people will choose to participate in terrorist activities, resulting in higher levels of terrorism. However, an analysis of the effect of an aggregate increase in young males offers alternative predictions for the effect of an increase in young males, including the possibility that since the total number of terrorists is so small relative to the entire 2 While suicide bombings committed by terrorists do not fit well under this rational choice model, suicide bombings comprise a very small number of terrorist events. In the entire ITERATE data set of over 12,000 terrorist events, less than 0.4% of incidents are suicide bombings. Furthermore, in my data set of over 8,000 terrorist events for which nationality of the terrorist is available, less than 0.5% of the events are classified as suicide bombings. Consequently, this rational choice analysis is useful and still widely applicable to the available data. 13

17 population, having a larger number of young males will not increase the number of terrorists. The basic theory of the individual decision to commit a crime weighs the expected benefits of crime against the expected costs. The benefits of a crime are calculated using the reward for a successful crime and the probability of success, while the cost of a crime is calculated using the penalty for being caught and the risk of being caught. We expect that people with a lower expected cost of crime or higher expected benefit would be more likely to commit a crime. Data shows that most crime is committed by young males. In the United States in 2003, 29.9% of all arrests and 29.0% of all arrests for violent crimes were of people between the ages of 18 and 24, even though this demographic only accounted for 9.9% of the population (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004). Given these data, the economic model for crime should suggest that young males have a lower expected cost of crime, a higher expected benefit, or both. Applying this model to terrorism suggests reasons why young males would also be more prone to committing terrorism than older males. The cost of terrorism is lower for young males than it is for older males for a few reasons. If we assume that the probability of being caught is the same across all ages, the varying expected cost must be due to the varying disutility of the penalty. The difference in disutility may stem from two sources: the difference in the mandated penalty and the difference in disutility caused by a given penalty. Generally, the mandated penalty for committing a crime under law varies with age only when a criminal is given a juvenile hearing and sentence. To the extent that this separation of the justice system into adult and juvenile systems exists, it is possible that the year old cohort could be affected 14

18 by this difference, leading to lower costs and therefore higher incidence of crime for individuals in this cohort. Next, we look at the varying disutility from a single adult penalty for crime. In general, we would expect the penalty for terrorism to be some type of incarceration rather than a financial penalty. Incarceration results in a financial cost due to the removal from wage-earning work and a psychic cost due to the removal from society. Since younger men generally earn lower wages than older men do, the financial cost of incarceration as measured by foregone wages is lower for young males than it is for older males. In addition, young males face higher rates of unemployment, which also makes the opportunity cost of their time lower than that of older males. The psychic cost of incarceration is likely to be highly related to an individual s relationships with others. Since older men are more likely to have a wife and children, they have more relationships and responsibilities within society, resulting in a higher cost than that of the relatively unattached young male. Thus, the psychic cost of incarceration is also lower for young males than it is for older males. While the cost side of the cost-benefit analysis is very similar for the analysis of crime and terrorism, the benefit side for terrorism is less obvious than it is for property crime. For property crime, we can say that the benefit from crime is the financial gain. Young males, who are relatively less well off than older males, would derive equal or greater utility from the same amount of financial benefit. However, my definition of terrorism assumes that the purpose of terrorist activities may be to cause political change or to express frustration and resentment without any expectation of improvement in the economic or political situation. Following from these different possible motivations for 15

19 terrorism, we have multiple channels through which individuals may derive benefits. These channels include direct financial gains, indirect financial gains caused by changes in the political situation, and psychic benefits from political change or even political expression without resultant change. Usually, there is no direct financial gain from terrorism. One exception to this is that some terrorists or their families may receive payment for services. We cannot say whether this benefit is greater for older or younger males. Instead of direct financial gain, the benefits of terrorism consist primarily of the indirect financial gains to the terrorist through policy changes and the psychic benefits from political change and expression. For the indirect financial gains, it is unclear whether present benefits will be larger for younger or older males. However, if we take the total of these benefits over the lifetime, we see that any beneficial change in policy will result in a greater benefit for the younger male, because the younger male will live longer and reap the benefits of the policy change for a longer period. For the psychic benefits, there are two possible theoretical arguments. First, we could envision a scenario in which the political frustration that caused the use of terrorism is greater for the older male who has had to face the current political situation for a longer period. With this reasoning, we would expect the older male to derive a greater psychic benefit from the political expression of acting against the current regime. However, there are many scenarios that might lead young males to have greater frustration and thus greater satisfaction or psychic benefit from terrorism for the purpose of political expression or change. First, there is a parallel effect between the indirect financial benefit from political change and the pure psychic benefit from political change. 16

20 Just as younger males accrue more indirect financial benefit because they will live under the new regime for a longer period of time, they will also derive more psychic benefit from political change because they will live under a more favorable political regime for a longer period of time. Unemployment is another cause of frustration in young males that can lead to terrorism. Unemployment already has a direct effect on the cost of terrorism by lowering the opportunity cost for young males. In addition, high unemployment can make it difficult for young males to gain independence, status, and livelihood (Richard P. Cincotta, Robert Engleman, and Danielle Anastasion, 2003). As a result, young males may become disaffected with the political environment, blaming their frustration upon domestic or outside forces that seem to contribute to the unsatisfactory economic conditions. Since unemployment is much higher for young males than it is for older males, we would expect the frustration and therefore psychic benefit from action taken to be higher for young males than for older males. In summary, theory does not point to a greater benefit for younger or older males from terrorist actions. However, because theory does predict a lower relative cost for younger males, we would still expect to see that the benefits outweigh the costs for younger males more often than for older males. Therefore, we would expect that younger males would be more likely to participate in terrorism. Recent literature includes ample evidence linking the young male demographic to general societal instability. Christian G. Mequida and Neil I. Weiner (1999) show that a larger proportion of young males in a population predicts a greater number of violent combat deaths. DiPasquale and Glaeser (1998) observe that most of the participants in 17

21 the 1992 Los Angeles riots were males between the ages of sixteen and thirty, a demographic that was subject to high unemployment and low homeownership rates at the time. These cases fit the cost-benefit analysis above and are examples of cases in which young males with a low opportunity cost of time and low societal responsibilities engage in violent or criminal activity. Though evidence to support this model for terrorism is less common, some recent studies contain anecdotal evidence linking young males to terrorism. In Krueger and Maleckova s (2003) analysis of Hezbollah fighters, 85% percent of the Hezbollah fighters who died were between fifteen and twenty-five years old, while only 20% of the entire population of Lebanon was in this age range. In another case study, Fernando Reinares (2004) uses judicial proceedings to determine the demographic profile of militants recruited by ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna or Basque Homeland and Freedom). Using data on nearly half of all ETA recruits between 1970 and 1995, he finds that 66.1% of militants were recruited when they were between the ages of 18 and 23, with an additional 18.2% recruited between the ages of 24 and 26. These studies are encouraging, but are limited to specific regions with long histories of terrorism. A crosscountry comparison could help discern whether the relationship between the age distribution of a population and terrorism is more widespread. Young Males and Terrorism: Aggregate Effects While theory and evidence both suggest that terrorists are likely to be young males, hypotheses that describe the relationship between the size of the young male population and the number of terrorists cover a range of possibilities. First, it is possible 18

22 that an increase in the young male share will not increase terrorism. We would expect to see this result if the number of terrorists is so small as compared to the population that terrorist organizations have as many members as they desire. In other words, if terrorist organizations can control the size of their membership and have enough members, then having more young males in the population may not affect the size of the terrorist network. A second possible relationship between young male share and terrorism is that terrorism will increase proportionally with the young male share. We would expect to see this result if there is a constant likelihood of an individual young male becoming a terrorist. As the number of young males increases, the number of terrorists increases at the same rate. A third possibility is that an increase in the number of young males will result in a greater than proportional increase in terrorists. This scenario is possible if there is a strong component of competition between young males for jobs or mates, so that having more young males increases competition and frustration in society. For example, in the model of individual decision-making above, unemployment affects the opportunity cost of participating in terrorism. It is possible that an increase in the number of young males will more than proportionally increase unemployment for this demographic, which could have large effects on the number of individuals who decide to participate in terrorism. Another factor that could result in a more-than-proportional increase in terrorism is the competition for mates. In societies with a large percentage of young males, an increase in competition for marriage can lead to frustration that contributes to the general tension present in the young male demographic. 19

23 If the actual relationship between young males and terrorism is the first of these possibilities, that an increase in young males does not increase terrorism, then the demographic change caused by an increase in women s education will not affect terrorism. Under this scenario, we should not be worried about the effect of demographics on terrorism. Conversely, if either of the latter two hypotheses holds, then we should see a fall in terrorism as women s education increases. Young Males and Terrorism: Native Population In addition to the model above, which links women s education to terrorism through its effect on fertility and the young male population, I also analyze an extension of this model that examines the effect of a change in the native young male share of the population on terrorism. The native young male share is the percentage of the population that is age 15-24, including outward migrants and not including inward migrants in this age range. In other words, this extension focuses on the young males born to native females, whether they remain in their country of origin or migrate outwards. The dual motivation for this extension comes first from the observation that the effect of women s education on population demographics is limited to the native population. Since my research attempts to quantify the effect of women s education through demographics, it makes sense to limit my young male share data to the portion of the population that is affected by domestic women s education and fertility, which is the native young male share. The second reason to limit the young male share to natives is that there are reasons to think that native young males are more likely to participate in terrorism than 20

24 immigrant young males. If this is true, then it makes sense to study the native young male share as the most relevant population to terrorism. Immigrants often leave their home countries for employment opportunity, and return to their home countries voluntarily or forcibly when the employment situation is poor. Since immigrants are more likely to be employed than native young males, they also have a higher opportunity cost of participation in terrorist activities. Finally, since immigrants choose their destinations, they are less likely to be politically disaffected in their destination countries. While this model is motivated by the belief that immigrants are not likely to participate in terrorism, one strength of the model is that it still holds if the converse is true. Any terrorist incident committed by an immigrant outside of his home country is attributed to the nationality of the terrorist, or his home country. In this way, the terrorist event is causally related to the women s education and demographic characteristics of his home country. This model draws a parallel between the motivations for emigration, including opportunity cost and societal frustration, and the similar motivations for terrorism. 4. Methods To examine the relationship between women and terrorism, I will look at women s role in shaping the demographic profile of a country and the relationship between the demographic profile and the prevalence of terrorism. In all regressions, observations are uniquely identified by a combination of country (i) and year (t). In addition, each regression is estimated with and without vectors of country (φ i ) and year (φ t ) fixed effects, which control for unobservable country- and year-specific characteristics. 21

25 The first regression relates women s education, measured by adult female literacy, to the fertility rate. Because many of the effects of women s education on fertility only materialize in the presence of opportunities for female labor market participation, I have included the percentage of the labor force that is female as a control. By including this control, I have ensured that the estimation of λ 1 as the effect of education on fertility is valid even in the absence of these labor market opportunities. My regression also includes variables for the level and growth of per capita GDP to control for the effects of macroeconomic conditions on individual fertility decisions, and a variable for infant mortality to control for the possibility that high fertility is due to compensation for high mortality rates. Finally, in order to prevent an omitted variable bias resulting from the effect of religion upon female education and fertility, I also include a control variable that measures the percentage of the population that is Muslim. In the following OLS regression, λ 1 is the variable of interest, because it measures the effect of adult female literacy on fertility. Regression 1: Fertility it = λ 0 + λ 1 Adult Female Literacy it + λ 2 Female Labor Force it + λ 3 Infant Mortality it + λ 4 GDP per capita it + λ 5 GDP per capita growth it + λ 6 Muslim share it + φ i + φ t + u it My second regression relates fertility to the young male share of the population. In this step, I regress the young male share of the population on a value of fertility that is lagged twenty years. In order to improve the estimation of the effect of fertility in this OLS regression, I use lagged values for the sex ratio and infant mortality as controls. These controls also add to the predictive power of this regression, since sex ratio and infant mortality can strongly affect the young male share of the population. In order to 22

26 control for aggregate wealth and education, this regression also includes variables for GDP per capita and literacy. Regression 2: Young Males it = α 0 + α 1 Fertility i(t-20) + α 2 Sex Ratio i(t-20) + α 3 Infant Mortality i(t-20) +α 4 GDP per capita it + α 5 Literacy it + φ i + φ t + e it The third regression tests the relationship between the young male share of the population and the number of terrorist events. This OLS regression uses a variety of controls that may affect terrorism, including GDP per capita, literacy, political rights, civil liberties, Muslim share, and ethno-linguistic fractionalization. The variables for GDP per capita and literacy are included in order to control for aggregate levels of wealth and education. Because terrorism is often a political expression, measures for political rights and civil liberties help control for the availability of other means of expression. Finally, Muslim share and ethno-linguistic fractionalization are included as controls to help make estimates comparable across countries with varying levels of Islam and cultural diversity in society, both of which may contribute to political unrest and terrorism. Regression 3: Terrorism it = β 0 + β 1 Young Males it + β 2 GDP per capita it + β 3 Literacy it + β 4 Political Rights it + β 5 Civil liberties it + β 6 Muslim share it + β 7 Ethno-linguistic fractionalization i + φ i + φ t + ε it The final regression is a two-stage least squares model that estimates the effect of the native young male share on terrorism. The first stage of this model builds on the basic framework of Regression 2 to use lagged values for fertility, sex ratio, and infant mortality as instruments for native young male share. This first stage regression also includes the additional controls from Regression 3, including political rights, civil liberties, Muslim share, and ethno-linguistic fractionalization. The results of this 23

27 regression estimation are used to predict values for the native young male share. The second stage uses Regression 3 to estimate the effect of this predicted value of native young male share on terrorism. This instrumented approach is required because detailed data on migration is scarce, making it difficult to use the actual values for native young male share. By using fertility as an instrument, I ensure that the size of the predicted young male population is unaffected by migration. In order for fertility to be a valid instrument, it must be correlated with the youth male share of the population and exogenous with respect to terrorism. The correlation between lagged fertility and the native young male share of the population is obvious by examination of the general course of birth and aging that relates higher fertility to higher population shares. However, the justification for the independence criterion requires some explanation. Fertility, as I have shown, is strongly associated with education. As such, we can guess that it is also strongly associated with wealth. If education and wealth are negatively correlated with terrorism at the individual or national level, then we might suspect that using fertility as an instrument for the native youth male share of the population would introduce bias from the omitted variables of education and wealth. However, I believe that individual and aggregate effects of education and wealth are factors that are either unrelated to terrorism or can be controlled for in the regressions. With respect to individual effects, there is evidence that if wealth and education are correlated to terrorism at all, the relationship is a positive one. As noted above, Krueger and Maleckova (2003) argue that terrorist actions are rarely motivated by the prospect of personal financial gain. Their argument is based in the crime literature, which says that while there are strong correlations between poverty, education, and property crimes, these 24

28 correlations are much weaker with respect to violent crimes. Since terrorism is more like violent crime in that the motivation is rarely financial gain, we would expect terrorism also to have little to no correlation with poverty and education. Krueger and Maleckova further argue that educated people are more likely to become terrorists because they are more likely to have the feelings of indignity and frustration that motivate terrorism and because they have skills that would make them more suitable choices for terrorist networks. Krueger and Maleckova s study supports these hypotheses by showing that Hezbollah fighters are generally wealthier and better educated than the Lebanese population. In addition, they cite surveys that show stronger support for terrorism from better-educated respondents. Thus, individual wealth and education are either positively associated with terrorism (which would bias my estimates downward), or are unassociated with terrorism, leaving fertility as a sound instrument. Though individual wealth and education can be accounted for in this way, societal factors are more complex. To examine the societal factors of terrorism, I take Krueger and Maleckova s assumption that terrorism is a response to political conditions and long-standing feelings of indignity and frustration. With this characterization, we would expect to see relatively wealthy and well-educated terrorists motivated by political factors that may be associated with lower overall levels of wealth and education. I control for the effect of societal wealth by including current levels of per capita GDP. The low aggregate levels of education in such a society are related to terrorism only to the extent that they are a by-product of the same environment that breeds political frustration and results in terrorism. A critical observation is that the low level of education that contributes to political discontent and terrorism is a measure of education at the time of 25

29 the terrorist event. In contrast, the level of education that affects the instrumental variable is a measure of conditions about thirty years prior. This lag is composed of two parts: first a lag between the education of a woman and her childbearing years (about ten years) and then the lag between the birth of a child and his reaching the critical age in the this study (about twenty years). We can say that current and lagged education variables are certainly correlated. However, if we take terrorism as an event with motivations mostly based on the political environment at the time of the attack, it is not unreasonable to assume that the education level from thirty years ago which affects the fertility rate from twenty years ago is unrelated to the incidence of terrorism today. Given this justification, an instrumental variables approach using a lagged value for fertility can be used to measure the effect of native youth male share on terrorism. Infant mortality and sex ratio are used as controls in order to improve the prediction of the native young male share. Economic controls include the level of GDP per capita; social controls include the literacy rate, Muslim share of the population, and ethnolinguistic fractionalization; and political controls include measures of political rights and civil liberties. Each of these is discussed in the data description that follows. The two stages are as follows: Regression 4, First Stage: Young Males it = α 0 + α 1 Fertility i(t-20) + α 2 Sex Ratio i(t-20) + α 3 Infant Mortality i(t-20) +α 4 GDP per capita it + α 5 Literacy it + α 6 Political rights it + α 7 Civil liberties it + α 8 Muslim share it + α 9 Ethno-linguistic fractionalization i + φ i + φ t + e it Regression 4, Second Stage: Terrorism it = β 0 + β 1 Young Males it + β 2 GDP per capita it + β 3 Literacy it + β 4 Political Rights it + β 5 Civil liberties it + β 6 Muslim share it + β 7 Ethno-linguistic fractionalization i + φ i + φ t + ε it 26