Marital trajectories, women’s autonomy and women’s wellbeing in Senegal

Sylvie Lambert (1) , Dominique van de Walle (2) , Paola Villar (3)

1 PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques
2 World Bank Groupe - Banque Mondiale
3 PSE - Paris School of Economics

Divorce and widowhood succeeded by remarriage are common for women in Africa. A key question is how such discontinuous marital trajectories affect women’s well-being. Women’s marital trajectories in Senegal are described and correlated with measures of voice, resource constraints and consumption welfare. Considerable selection into divorce and widowhood as well as subsequent remarriage is documented. Poorer women are more vulnerable to both dissolutions and remarriage and hence bear more of the costs while being nevertheless afforded a safety net in the form of a male protector. Marital breakdowns and their aftermaths are far from neutral in terms of women’s well-being.

Mots clés: Widowhood; Divorce; Welfare; Women; Senegal

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Sylvie Lambert, Dominique van de Walle, Paola Villar. Marital trajectories, women’s autonomy and women’s wellbeing in Senegal. WIDER Working Paper Series, 2017, 2017/124, 51 p. ⟨hal-01608852⟩