I will now report on the results of the ordered logistics regression. I start off with the first hypothesis in comparing a basic model of the three types of rights and analysing the effect of CEDAW. I continue with a model specifying the role of democracy if a state is party to the Convention (H2) and again compare the results of political and socio-economic rights.
My next model includes the religious indicators to capture the impact they might have on CEDAWs effectiveness. The last model I present takes account of the wealth of literature on international interdependence, in testing whether these indicators explain the actual or perceived variance between the rights.
5.2.1 Hypothesis 1: The effect of CEDAW
The basic model I employ to test the effectiveness of CEDAW includes both the democracy indicator and the level of development at which a country finds itself. Table 3 reports the odds ratios for three dependent variables. The ratification of CEDAW obviously has a highly significant impact on the situation of women - a result that contradicts the findings of many studies dealing with the effect of IHRT, as seen in the literature review (e.g.
Hathaway, 2002). The odds of a state that is party to the Convention to be in a higher category of political rights are 3.4 times higher than those of a non-member, holding all other variables constant. The same measurement only accounts to 2.1 times higher odds for social and 1.6 times higher odds for economic rights. The reported results are signifi-cant at the 1%-level.
Table 3: Base Model: Variance in the Effect of CEDAW
Political Rights Social Rights Economic Rights coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio
CEDAW Rat. 1.230*** 3.422 0.785*** 2.192 0.490*** 1.632
(0.162) (0.143) (0.155)
Democracy 0.044*** 1.045 0.065*** 1.067 0.045*** 1.046
(0.017) (0.014) (0.0013)
ln p.c. GDP 0.212*** 1.236 0.400*** 1.492 0.380*** 1.463
(0.071) (0.076) (0.077)
Rights(0) t-1 -4.288*** 0.01 -4.170*** 0.015 -3.425*** 0.033
(0.480) (0.308) (0.397)
Rights (1) t-1 -4.124*** 0.02 -2.855*** 0.058 -3.039*** 0.048
(0.014) (0.025) (0.018)
Rights (2) t-1 -1.281 0.28 -0.681** 0.506 0.980*** 2.666
(0.960) (0.292) (0.335)
M cK&Zav.R2 0.731 0.746 0.626
Note: N=2413. coef..coeffiecients. Cut-Points not reported. Robust standard errors in parentheses
* significant at 10%** significant at 5%, *** significant at 1%.
Although being a state party to the Convention generally increases the odds that womens will enjoy a higher respect of their rights, the first hypothesised relationship seems to be confirmed. The CEDAW variable displays the highest coefficient in the case of political rights. The control variables democracy and development have the expected effect, with the level of development being slightly more salient for the socio-economic rights than for political rights, which fits well into the theoretical model. State capacity might be more important for the provision of the so-called ‘second-generation rights’ than for the political rights (cf. Steiner et al., 2008). The corresponding lagged binary variables (that are re-ported as theRights t-1 variables) are all negative and significant at the 1%-level, except
for the last category, which is not significant for political rights and positively significant for economic rights. This is most likely due to the fact that the occurrence of the highest category of rights (full respect) is relatively seldom22.
5.2.2 Hypothesis 2: Democracy
The second hypothesised relationship refers to the general assumption that democratic states display higher levels of respect for human rights than non-democracies. To test if this assumption is also found to be true when comparing members to CEDAW, I add a variable to the base model that multiplies the ratification indicator with the level of democracy a country displays.
Table 4 reports the results for the three dependent variables. The addition of this in-teractive term decreases the coefficient of the ratification variable on political and social slightly, and increases it in a minor way for the economic rights. Analysing the two con-stitutive variables, we can say that if the democracy variable assumes its lowest value (strongly autocratic), the odds ratio of CEDAW is 3.27 for political rights and 1.99 and 1.71 for social and economic rights, which means that the ratification of CEDAW will also make a difference in countries that do not have democratic institutions. If CEDAW is not ratified, the increase of one value on the democracy scale will increase the odds at 1.04 that a state will respect women’s political rights at a higher level, all other factors held constant. Interestingly though, the interactive variable itself does not show a significant result for any of the three types of rights. However, the interpretation of interactive vari-ables is not quite as straightforward. Unfortunately, interactive terms in logit models do not allow for direct interpretation, which means I cannot identify whether the ratification of CEDAW might yield a significant effect from, e.g. a medium democracy level. Nuanced differentiation would be methodologically incorrect. Thus, even though the interactive term is not significant here, the addition of it might still have an important effect on the model (see Brambor et al., 2006: 74).
22This means that the last lagged dummy only assumes the value ‘1’ very seldom, and by consequence, also decreases the odds that a state will respect women’s rights in the highest category, even if it did so in the previous year. See Appendix, Tables A3a-c
Table 4: Democracy
Political Rights Social Rights Economic Rights coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio
CEDAW Rat. 1.18*** 3.27 0.690** 1.993 0.539* 1.714
(0.27) (0.309) (0.283)
Democracy 0.041** 1.04 0.061*** 1.063 0.047** 1.048
(0.02) (0.020) (0.018)
lnp.c. GDP 0.210*** 1.23 0.397*** 1.488 0.382*** 1.466
(0.07) (0.077) (0.077)
Democ.*Rat. 0.005 1.00 0.008 1.008 -0.004 0.996
(0.022) (0.020) (0.019)
M cK&Zav.R2 0.731 0.746 0.626
Note: N=2413. coef..coeffiecients, Robust standard errors in parentheses Lagged Binary Variables not reported. Cut-Points not reported.
* significant at 10%** significant at 5%, *** significant at 1%.
5.2.3 Hypothesis 3: Religion
To test the next Hypothesis, I add the religious variables MUSLIM and CATHO to the base model. Also, a time trend variable YEAR0 is included, so as to test whether a general trend of increasing or decreasing values can be detected. Table 5 reports the results of the three types of rights alongside each other, so as to facilitate the comparison. The first noteworthy change detected is the loss of explanation-power experienced by the democracy variable in the case of political rights. Obviously, the additional variables now account for the variation that was previously explained by the level democratic domestic institutions a state provided. The percentage of Muslims in a country’s population has a negative effect on the respect of women’s rights, which is significant at the 1%-level across all three types of rights. Apparently, the influence of Muslim law and tradition constrains compli-ance with women’s rights. The model predicts that, for example, the odds that a state with 51% Muslims will respect women’s economic rights at a higher level that a country with 50% Muslim population is 0.991. An increase in Muslim or Catholic population in a country decreases the odds that a state will respect women’s rights adequately. The indicator for the percentage of Catholics has a negative influence and is highly significant (1%-level) for political rights but reports no noticeable impact on either social or economic rights. The similarity in results between social and economic rights is most likely due to the above-mentioned overlapping definitions of their indicators. Hypothesis 3 is therefore partly confirmed, with the Muslim variable displaying significant negative influence on all three types, whereas the Catholic one seems to only affect womens political rights. Lastly, I turn to the time trend variable employed in the model. It is significant at the 1%-level
for women’s political rights, predicting that the odds of a state respecting these rights at one higher level in the following year a 1.07. There seems to therefore be a general increase in the respect of women’s political rights over time and across nations, all other factors held constant. In contrast, women’s socio-economic rights do not follow this trend.
Holding all other factors at the same level, there seems to be no general improvement for women’s socio-economic rights over space and time. This again is a confirmation of the non-linearity of the models and thus the justified employment of the lagged binary variables.
Table 5: Religion
Political Rights Social Rights Economic Rights coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio
CEDAW Rat. 0.92*** 2.52 0.577*** 1.781 0.351** 1.420
(0.19) (0.182) (0.177)
Democracy 0.02 1.02 0.045*** 1.046 0.031** 1.031
(0.02) (0.014) (0.0013)
lnp.c. GDP 0.25*** 1.28 0.382*** 1.466 0.360*** 1.433
(0.09) (0.077) (0.078)
Muslim -0.001*** 0.99 -0.012*** 0.988 -0.009*** 0.991
(0.00) (0.004) (0.003)
Catholic -0.01*** 0.99 -0.004 0.996 -0.003 0.997
(0.00) (0.003) (0.003)
Time Trend 0.07*** 1.07 0.021 1.021 -0.000 1.000
(0.01) (0.014) (0.013)
M cK&Zav.R2 0.750 0.745 0.621
Note: N=2336. coef..coeffiecients, Robust standard errors in parentheses Lagged Binary Variables not reported. Cut-Points not reported.
* significant at 10%** significant at 5%, *** significant at 1%.
5.2.4 Testing alternative explanations
What about other factors, that haven’t been included in the previous models? The litera-ture mostly points towards the importance of international interdependence, in particular the effect of globalization on women’s status. How does the respect for women’s rights differ between the three types if these factors are taken into account? Turning the argu-ment around, how will the ratification of CEDAW influence the effect of these empirically confirmed relationships? To test these suppositions, a further model is introduced, that adds the indicators for IGOs, INGOs and a state’s level of economic integration to the
base model. As Table 6 shows, the CEDAW variable still displays a highly significant effect on all three types of rights. The odds ratios have slightly decreased compared with the base model, indicating that the additional variables might account for some of the variation previously explained by the ratification variable.
Table 6: International Interdependence
Political Rights Social Rights Economic Rights coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio coef. odds ratio
CEDAW Rat. 0.0771*** 2.16 0.603*** 1.827 0.439** 1.551
(0.171) (0.186) (0.179)
Democracy 0.045*** 1.05 0.061*** 1.063 0.047*** 1.048
(0.014) (0.014) (0.0013)
lnp.c. GDP 0.159* 1.17 0.291*** 1.338 0.263*** 1.300
(0.087) (0.088) (0.080)
IGO 1.016** 1.02 0.012* 1.012 0.011** 1.011
(0.007) (0.007) (0.005)
lnINGOs 0.019 1.02 0.108 1.114 0.140* 1.151
(0.127) (0.090) (0.073)
lnTrade -0.067 0.94 0.266 1.305 0.510*** 1.665
(0.152) (0.177) (0.159)
Time Trend 0.771*** 2.16 0.002 1.002 -0.026 0.974
(0.171) (0.018) (0.016)
M cK&Zav.R2 0.740 0.746 0.632
Note: N=2346. coef..coeffiecients, Robust standard errors in parentheses Lagged Binary Variables not reported. Cut-Points not reported.
* significant at 10%** significant at 5%, *** significant at 1%.
When comparing the difference in effect between the three types, the odds ratios are still in the same order as before, though the political variable seems to have decreased the most. This is however, most likely due to the time trend variable which yields the same effect as in the prior model. Turning to the new variables, the number of IGOs that a country is member to shows a positive effect on the respect of women’s rights across all types, with the coefficients showing similar values in all three cases. Contrary to previous studies (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, 2005), the involvement of international NGOs does not have an overall effect on women’s human rights, with only the economic indicator showing a significant positive result at the 10%-level. This is most likely due to the con-struction of the indicator: as it includes all INGOs registered in a country, there is no disaggregation of issue areas the NGOs occupy23.
23Taking a closer look at the data, we see that for example Nepal belongs to those states with the highest occurrence of INGOs. However, the consultation of the website of the Association of inter-national NGOs in Nepal reveals that the majority work in areas of general development,
environ-Previous studies had concentrated on women’s economic rights and globalization; a fact that might be explained by the results shown here. The indicator for economic integra-tion used in this model has a highly significant and positive effect on women’s economic rights. Globalization seems to be important determinant for the development of women’s economic rights. In the case of political and social rights, the variable yields no significant results that would point towards a direct relationship between economic globalization and the improvement of women’s rights.