The Effect of Womens 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

Abstract
One quantifiable channel through which womens education may affect
terrorism is through the effect of womens education on fertility and
population demographics. Separate analyses on data from developing
countries and the Middle East/North Africa region show that increasing
womens 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 womens education on terrorism through
political and social channels, womens education does not reduce
terrorism through its effect on fertility and demographics.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Economic Theory

10

4. Methods

21

5. Data Description

27

6. Results Developing Countries

36

7. Results Middle East and North Africa

43

8. Conclusion

50

References

53

Appendix: Summary and Regression Tables

55

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 womens education and
national security include hypotheses that womens 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 womens political
participation.
While many of the larger effects of womens education on society are difficult to
quantify, one measurable impact is the effect of womens education on fertility. Studies
have shown that an increase in womens education reduces individual and aggregate
fertility rates, which affects the age structure of a countrys 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
solutionsIn the case of the Arab world, this revolution has taken the
form of an Islamic resurgence.

In this paper, I show empirically that while womens education does affect
population age structures, the resulting demographic change does not significantly affect
terrorism. First, I show that an increase in womens 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 countrys population over time towards having
fewer young people.
This demographic shift could reduce terrorism through multiple channels. By
extending the economic model of an individuals 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 womens
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 womens education on
fertility using data from the World Banks World Development Indicators database. The

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 womens 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.

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 womens education and
demographics by estimating the effect of womens education on terrorism through this
demographic channel. While my results challenge the hypothesis that womens
education will reduce terrorism by changing demographic structure, it is still true that
womens education is beneficial for development in general. Furthermore, the effect of
womens 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 womens 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.

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 womens
education on terrorism, mostly because of the difficulty in isolating the effect of an
increase in womens education from other changes that may be taking place
simultaneously. Some research emphasizes the demonstrated effectiveness of womens
participation in conflict resolution and claim that an increase in womens education and

status would allow for more peace efforts. However, others argue that aggregate levels of
education are unrelated to terrorism. One researcher even argues that womens 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 womens 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 womens 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 womens
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 womens 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 womens 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

decision-making. The study relates the likelihood of militarized interstate disputes to

general womens 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
womens 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 womens 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 womens outcomes will reduce

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 womens
education that could result in an overall positive or negative effect on terrorism. Since it
is possible to measure womens involvement in the public arena of political decisionmaking, Caprioli (2000) is able to measure the effect of womens 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 womens 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

measures of womens status that have not yet been studied in the context of terrorism are
womens 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 womens influence that is unrelated to these factors.
Many of the competing effects of womens education on terrorism discussed
above are obscured by the secrecy surrounding terrorist networks. Measuring this effect
is further complicated by the relationship of womens 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 womens rights and education. In the next section, I explain one causal chain that links
womens education to terrorism. I begin by linking an increase in womens 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.

3. Economic Theory
Increased Education Reduces Fertility
To examine the effect that womens education has on terrorism, I first look at the
effect of womens education on fertility. In this study, I use the World Banks 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 womens 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 womans 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, womens 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

for children that increases the cost of childrearing, and the lower likelihood of reliance on
children as a source of support in old age (ystein Kravdal, 2002).
In comparing aggregate levels of education and fertility across countries, we
might suspect that a negative correlation between womens 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 womens 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 womens education on fertility would be that the education only
reduces fertility through its effect on womens 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

Lower Fertility Reduces the Number of Young Males in Society

In order to measure the effect of womens education on terrorism, I take the
negative relationship between womens 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

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 womens 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, 15-24 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

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

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 15-24 year old cohort could be affected

14

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 individuals 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

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

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

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
Maleckovas (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

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

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 womens 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 womens education increases.

Young Males and Terrorism: Native Population

In addition to the model above, which links womens 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 womens education on population demographics is limited to the native
population. Since my research attempts to quantify the effect of womens education
through demographics, it makes sense to limit my young male share data to the portion of
the population that is affected by domestic womens 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

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 womens 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 womens
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 (i) and year (t) fixed
effects, which control for unobservable country- and year-specific characteristics.

21

The first regression relates womens education, measured by adult female literacy,
to the fertility rate. Because many of the effects of womens 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 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, 1 is the variable of interest, because it measures the effect of adult female
literacy on fertility.
Regression 1:
Fertilityit = 0 + 1Adult Female Literacyit + 2Female Labor Forceit
+ 3 Infant Mortalityit + 4GDP per capitait + 5GDP per capita growthit
+ 6Muslim shareit + i + t + uit
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

control for aggregate wealth and education, this regression also includes variables for
GDP per capita and literacy.
Regression 2:
Young Malesit = 0 + 1 Fertilityi(t-20) + 2 Sex Ratioi(t-20) + 3 Infant Mortalityi(t-20)
+4GDP per capitait + 5Literacyit + i + t + eit
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:
Terrorismit = 0 + 1Young Malesit + 2GDP per capitait + 3Literacyit +
4Political Rightsit + 5Civil libertiesit + 6Muslim shareit + 7Ethno-linguistic
fractionalizationi + i + t + 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

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

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 Maleckovas 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 Maleckovas 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

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 Malesit = 0 + 1 Fertilityi(t-20) + 2 Sex Ratioi(t-20) + 3 Infant Mortalityi(t-20)
+4GDP per capitait + 5Literacyit + 6Political rightsit + 7Civil libertiesit +
8Muslim shareit + 9Ethno-linguistic fractionalizationi + i + t + eit
Regression 4, Second Stage:
Terrorismit = 0 + 1Young Malesit + 2GDP per capitait + 3Literacyit +
4Political Rightsit + 5Civil libertiesit + 6Muslim shareit + 7Ethno-linguistic
fractionalizationi + i + t + it

26

5. Data Description
Education
Data on education is used in each of the four regressions. In each case, I have
used measures of literacy for the relevant population from the World Banks World
Development Indicators (WDI) database. The World Bank definition of adult literacy is
the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write
a short, simple statement on their everyday life.
There are a number of reasonable measures of education that would be relevant to
the regression of fertility on education, including primary enrollment, secondary
enrollment, educational attainment, and literacy. The best data for each of these
measures would be limited to describing women of childbearing age, generally defined as
ages 15 to 44. However, data on women restricted to this age range is sparse. Since
measures for adult females, ages 15 and over, are a close correlate and are widely
available, I have used data for this age range.
The various measures of womens education all relate to womens status and
knowledge attained. An increase in any of the education variables should indicate that
women are better able to use information provided and make better-informed choices.
Measures of enrollment and attainment are more closely related to womens status,
including decisions about marriage, childbearing, and labor participation. Literacy
captures some of this, but also describes the result of womens education or the actual
knowledge a female gains from school or other sources. One drawback of using literacy
is that it is more sensitive to targeted literacy programs in particular years or localities
than other measures of education, and so may be affected by programs that are

27

unrepresentative of general trends. However, I have chosen to use literacy because it best
captures female knowledge and has the greatest country and year coverage. Adult female
literacy data from the WDI is available from 1970 to 2003 on an annual basis. Female
literacy in developing countries has grown steadily in over this period from 43.2% in
1970 to 72.6% in 2000. While the WDI reports literacy rates as high as 99% for some
countries, others are listed only as estimated to be greater than 95%. To homogenize
the data, I have top coded adult female literacy at 95%.

Fertility
My measurement for fertility also comes from the World Development Indicators
database of the World Bank, which compiles data from census reports, the UN Statistical
Division, country statistical offices, and Demographic and Health Surveys to measure
fertility. It 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. The data are available for about 180 countries at
least every two to three years from 1960 to 2002. Because the data is available at regular
intervals, I have linearly imputed the fertility for years with missing values. During this
time period, there was a fall in the average fertility in developing countries from 5.05 to
2.76. Though the general trend of declining fertility applies globally, a few countries
have experienced increases in fertility, and a number of countries have experienced very
small declines. For the developing countries between 1980 and 2000, fertility ranges
from 1.18 to 9.93 with a mean of 4.55. In Regression 1, these data are used as the
dependent variable and are identified by country and year pair. In Regression 2, fertility

28

data from 1960 to 1980 are used as lagged variables, such that the value of the young
male share in 1985 for example, is regressed on the value of fertility in 1965. These data
have a similar range and a slightly higher mean of 6.01 due to the global trend of
reduction in fertility over the last four decades.

Young Male Percentage

The young male share variable used in Regressions 2 and 3 is the number of
males ages 15 to 24 as a percent of the population for a given country and year period.
These data are available in the World Population Prospects database compiled by the
United Nations by country and region on an annual basis between 1950 and 2000. Table
1 shows the percentage of young males in major regions of the world in ten-year periods
from 1950 to 2000. The percentage of the population in this young male category for
major regions varies between 13.6% for North America in the 1950s to 20.6% for Africa
in 2000. Even with this variation, there is a general trend of falling percentages of young
males in the population from 1950 to the mid-1960s, a rise from the mid-1960s until
around 1980, and a return to lower percentages throughout the 1980s and 1990s. One
major exception to this trend is within Africa, where the percentage has increased steadily
since 1964. The variation among individual countries and trends should be helpful,
because it will provide the variation that can be used to explain terrorism in countries
over time. In addition, as trends continue, we will be able to anticipate their effects on
terrorism in the future.

29

Native young male percentage is the variable of interest in Regression 4. While

data exists on migration rates, it does not include details such as age or gender. To
predict the values native young male share, I have used fertility as an instrument.

Terrorism
Regressions 3 and 4 identify the relationship between the total and native young
male populations in a country and the existence of terrorism. Since terrorist networks are
so nebulous, one of the best ways to quantify them is to count their explicit actions.
Given the wide variety of actions, motivations, and results that can be associated with
terrorism, it should be no surprise that there is no global agreement over what defines a
terrorist event. Since I use the ITERATE data set for information on terrorist incidents, I
also use the ITERATE definition of terrorism, which is: the use, or threat of use, of
anxiety-inducing, extra-normal 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.
The ITERATE data set, which was created and updated by Edward Mickolus,
includes a compilation of data about over 12,000 international terrorist events gleaned
from media reports between 1968 and 2002. For an event to be included, it must involve
people of more than one nationality, either as victims or as actors. These data include the
date and location of each event, the number of deaths and injuries in each event, and the

30

terrorist group that committed the action if known. While it is easy to attribute each
event to a particular year, relating each event to a particular country is more difficult, as
there can be up to three countries associated with each event.
One obvious choice of country would be the location of the event. If we believe
that a large proportion of males in society makes the society generally more unstable,
then this attribution would be the best choice. Having more males may affect general law
enforcement and security, leaving vulnerabilities that terrorists may take advantage of
while planning locations of attacks. In addition, if we assume that young males are likely
to be the terrorist and that terrorists generally attack in their home country, then the
location of the attack would be the right country attribution. However, because this
database covers only international terrorist events, the attackers home country is the
same as the events location in only about half of the events for which nationality of the
attacker is known. Another choice for country attribution would be the intended target of
the attack. While this country is usually the same as the one in which the event occurs,
there are instances in which terrorism against one country occurs elsewhere. For
example, the embassy bombings of 1998 occurred in Kenya and Tanzania occurred in
Africa, but were clearly targeted at the United States and were committed by men from
Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, among others. In cases like this one,
the number of young males in the target country does not seem closely related to the
terrorist event. The best choice for country attribution then, is the home county of the
attacker. My model attempts to study the effect of an increase in the young male share on
the likelihood of a given young male to engage in terrorist activities. The young male
share most closely related to this decision is the young male share in a given attackers

31

home country. Therefore, each incident should be attributed to the country of the
attacker. The drawback to this attribution is that for about one-third of the events in the
data set, the nationality of the attacker is unavailable. For the 8,000 remaining
observations, up to three nationalities are listed for the terrorists. I have attributed each
event to each country that supplies an attacker, counting each event up to three times.
After attributing country and year to each terrorist event, the final measurement
choice is the effect of the terrorist event. I have used two dependent variables in my
terrorism regressions: incident counts and casualties. Each observation is identified
uniquely by country and year. The incident count measurement is the number of events
attributed to a given country and year pair by terrorist nationality. In order to smooth the
data, the observation for each country year pair is aggregated into five-year periods, so
that the incident count for a given country and year includes events from two years prior
and two years following the year of the observation. For developing countries, this
variable has a mean of 7.56, and ranges from 0 to 169. For the Middle East/North Africa
(MENA) subset of the data, the mean is 13.12, and the range is 0 to 156. The casualties
measurement is a sum of all the injuries and deaths related to every terrorist event
attributed to a given country and year by terrorist nationality. This variable is aggregated
into five-year sums in the same way as the incident count variable. The range of this
variable is 0 to 1098 for both the developing countries data set and the MENA subset.
However, the mean for developing countries is 29, while the mean for MENA is 62.
Tables 2 and 3 list the years and countries with the fewest and most terrorist incidents.

32

Control Variables
Regression 1, which estimates the effect of womens education on fertility,
includes controls for womens labor participation, infant mortality, GDP per capita, GDP
per capita growth, and Muslim share. The data source for the percentage of the labor
force that is female is the World Banks World Development Indicators (WDI), which
uses measurements from the International Labour Organization to show the extent to
which women are active in the labor force. According to the WDI, the labor force
comprises all people who meet the International Labour Organization's definition of the
economically active population. For the observations used in the fertility regression for
developing countries, this variable ranges from 5.1 to 52.5 percent with a mean of 35.9.
The MENA region has a similar range and a much lower mean of 27.1 percent.
Infant mortality data was drawn from the same source as the young male share
data, the World Population Prospects database by the United Nations. The data is
available in five-year increments from 1950 to 2000, and was linearly imputed for the
intervening years. GDP per capita levels and growth rates were drawn from the World
Banks World Development Indicators database, which includes data from 1960 to 2003
in thousands of constant 1995 US Dollars. Finally, the control for religion measures the
percentage of the population identified as Muslim. The 2004 data for this variable comes
from the CIA 2004 World Factbook. Earlier values were taken from the World Christian
Encyclopedia by Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson, which lists Muslim percentage in fiveyear increments. Data for the intervening years was linearly imputed. For the
observations used both regressions, the variable ranges from 0 to 100. However, the

33

mean for the developing countries is around 30 percent, while the mean for the MENA
subset is around 80 percent.
Regression 2, which estimates the effect of lagged fertility on the young male
share, includes four control variables, two of which are lagged. The lagged variables are
sex ratio and infant mortality. With this lag, the infant mortality and sex ratio in 1965
serve as controls for the young male share in 1985. Data for both of these variables
comes from the United Nations World Population Prospects database. The sex ratio was
computed by dividing the number of males in the 0 to 15 year old age range by the
number of females in this same age range. The infant mortality data is a lagged value of
the same data used in Regression 1. The other two controls used in Regression 2 are
measures of GDP per capita and literacy. GDP data is the same data used in Regression 1
from the World Development Indicators. Literacy data also comes from the World
Development Indicators and is similar to the independent variable data from Regression
1. However, instead of using adult female literacy, I have used total adult literacy as the
control in Regressions 2, 3, and 4. According to the WDI, world literacy in developing
countries has increased from 53.5% in 1970 to 78.4% in 2000. Just as with adult female
literacy, because some countries literacy data is estimated at over 95%, I have top
coded total adult literacy data at 95%.
The final set of controls added to Regressions 3 and 4 includes political rights,
civil liberties, Muslim share, and ethno-linguistic fractionalization. Political rights and
civil liberties data were obtained from Freedom House, a non-profit organization that
supports freedom and democracy. Freedom House has assigned countries ratings for
political rights and civil liberties since 1972. These ratings range from 1 to 7, with 1

34

representing the highest degree of freedom. The survey of political rights includes
measurements of the electoral process, political pluralism, and functioning of
government. Civil liberties are measured by freedom of expression or belief,
associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and
individual rights.
Muslim share data used in Regressions 3 and 4 is the same as the data used in
Regression 1. Finally, the variable for ethno-linguistic fractionalization serves as a
control for diversity within the domestic population. This data was obtained from a data
set compiled by Professor Philip Roeder of the University of California at San Diego.
This variable is measured as one minus the Herfindahl index, which compares the size of
each ethno-linguistic group to the entire population. The variable ranges from 0 to 1 and
increases with greater diversity in the population. The mean of the variable is 0.50 for
the developing countries data set and 0.37 for the MENA subset. Because this variable is
non-time-varying, it is not included in fixed effects regressions.
My results use two subsets of data that are region specific. The first data set uses
all observations from developing countries for which measures of all independent,
dependent, and control variable data is available. The second data set similarly uses
observations from the MENA region for which all data is available. Tables 4 and 5 list
regional means for the main and control variables used in all regressions. In addition,
more detailed summary statistics are listed for the developing countries data set in Tables
A4 and A5 and for the MENA data set in Tables B4 and B5.

35

6. Results Developing Countries

Regression 1: Education and Fertility
The results for the relationship between education and fertility support the
hypothesis that an increase in female education will reduce fertility. Looking at Table
A6, we can see that the independent variable, adult female literacy, affects fertility at the
1% level of significance. The coefficient for the independent variable in the fixed effects
regression is -0.041, which seems small. However, examining the summary statistics for
literacy and fertility in Table A4 are enlightening. For the observations used in this
regression, the standard deviation for literacy and fertility are 27.49 and 1.69,
respectively. Taking the summary statistics with the regression estimation, we find that
increasing literacy by one standard deviation would result in a reduction in fertility of 1.1,
which is 0.7 of a standard deviation in fertility.
Because the regression includes controls for economic conditions and religion, we
can assume that the measured effect of womens education is due to the direct effect of
education on fertility decisions and not due to wealth, labor market participation, or
religion. In the fixed effects model, the coefficients on infant mortality and Muslim share
are significant at the 1% and 5% levels, respectively. As expected, fertility rises with
both of these variables. A one standard deviation increase in infant mortality increases
fertility by 0.7 children, or 0.4 of a standard deviation. A one standard deviation increase
in Muslim share increases fertility by 2.4 children, or 1.4 standard deviations.
The coefficients on the economic controls in this regression are mostly
unexpected. The female labor force participation coefficient should be negative, because
we expect that an increase in labor market opportunities will reduce fertility. While this

36

result is demonstrated by both specifications, the coefficient loses significance in the

fixed effects model. In the fixed effects model, the results for GDP per capita are
significant at the 5% level but in the opposite direction that was expected: a rise in wealth
seems to indicate a higher level of fertility. It is possible that the observation of high
fertilities in low-income countries is driven by low education and high infant mortality.
After controlling for each of these factors, an increase in wealth seems to increase
fertility. One possible explanation for this result is that when factors such as education
and infant mortality are held constant, a more wealthy family is able to support more
children. It is important to note that this effect, while significant at the 5% level in the
specification with fixed effects, is not significant in the specification without fixed
effects. In total then, there is only weak evidence that an increase in GDP will increase
fertility.

Regression 2: Fertility and Young Male Share

As expected, the results show that increasing fertility increases the total young
male share twenty years later. Table A7 shows that the magnitude of this effect is large
and significant at the 1% level. According to the results for the fixed effects
specification, a one standard deviation increase in fertility results in a 1.1 standard
deviation increase in the young male share. Many of the control variables are significant
in the first specification (without fixed effects) but lose significance when fixed effects
are added. Further investigation of these variables, including sex ratio, GDP per capita,
and literacy, shows that year and country fixed effects explain 75% or more of the
variation in these variables, making it difficult to estimate their effect on young male

37

share in the fixed effects model. In the model without fixed effects, young male share
increases with sex ratio and decreases with GDP as expected. These results are
significant at the 1% level. Surprisingly, young male share seems to increase with
literacy. While this result is significant at the 1% level, the magnitude of the effect is not
very large. A one standard deviation increase in literacy increases young male share by
0.4 standard deviations. Infant mortality does not seem to affect young male share after
the inclusion of fertility and the other control variables.

Regression 3: Young Male Share and Terrorism

The results from Regression 3, summarized in Table A8, provide evidence that an
increase in the young male share does not increase terrorism, as measured by incident
counts or casualties. The four specifications for this regression include two options for
the dependent variable (incident counts and casualties) and two options for fixed effects
(none or year and country fixed effects). The only specification with a significant result
for the coefficient on young males is specification 3, which has a negative coefficient.
These regressions do not provide evidence for or against the theory that young males are
the most likely demographic to engage in terrorist actions. However, they do provide
evidence to support one of the theories that links the number of young males in the
population to terrorism. The data suggests that an increasing share of young males does
not result in a constant or increasing likelihood of a young male becoming a terrorist.
Rather, the data supports the theory that having more young males in the population will
not significantly affect terrorism.

38

As in the results for Regression 2, many of the controls lose significance when
fixed effects are added, likely because there is not enough variation in these variables to
estimate their effects. However, by comparing the specifications with and without fixed
effects, we can get a sense of how terrorism is affected by each of these variables.
Because the distribution of the terrorism variables is skewed, it makes sense to compare
the effects of the control variables in absolute numbers of incidents and casualties instead
of standard deviations.
According to the fixed effects models, a one standard deviation increase in GDP
results in about 2.9 fewer terrorist events and about 26 fewer casualties over a five-year
period. These results weakly suggest that when the affected countries are limited to those
with low incomes to begin with, as in this developing country data set, an increase in
wealth will reduce terrorism. This finding supports Krueger and Maleckovas hypothesis
that long-standing inequalities or poverty may encourage terrorism. However, it is clear
just by looking at Table 3, which lists the countries producing the most terrorists, that
terrorism affects countries in every income group. Therefore, these results should not be
extrapolated to countries with higher levels of societal wealth. Further results for
Regression 3 applied to different regional and income level subsets of countries can be
found in Tables 10 and 11. While these coefficient estimates are not significant, the
regressions weakly suggest that an increase in wealth may reduce the number of terrorist
incidents across the developing world but not in the more developed countries.
Krueger and Maleckova also suggest that a low level of education is one of the
societal factors that causes frustration and motivates terrorism. My results do not support
this theory, and instead offer weak support to the contrary, that countries with higher

39

literacy rates produce more terrorists. Though the coefficients on literacy are not well
estimated in the fixed effects regressions, they suggest that a one standard deviation
increase in literacy results in about 7 additional incidents and about 92 additional
casualties.
In examining political rights and civil liberties, the overall effect of a
simultaneous decrease in political rights and civil liberties is to increase terrorism. In the
regressions without fixed effects, the magnitudes of these coefficients are particularly
large and significant, especially considering that the scale of these variables is from 1 to
7. As with earlier control variables, the significance is dropped when fixed effects are
added to the incident count regression. However, since the significance is maintained in
the casualties regression, and the signs are constant throughout the four regressions, it is
still useful to interpret the implications of these coefficients.
The regressions show effects of similar magnitudes but in opposite directions for
political rights and civil liberties. The similar, large magnitudes may be explained by the
high correlation between these two variables for the observations used in this regression
estimation (R2 = 0.887). It is important to note that these variables are measured such
that an increase in value reflects a decrease in rights. When both political rights and civil
liberties increase by one, the relative degree of freedom falls, and the total effect is to
increase terrorism by between 0.2 and 0.6 incidents and between 5 and 7 casualties over
five years (with and without fixed effects, respectively). Therefore, countries with fewer
rights experience more terrorism, as we would expect. In addition, while the coefficients
on each variable are large when considered separately, an increase in one variable is
generally accompanied by an increase in the other variable, leading to a relatively small

40

total effect on terrorism. While the collinearity of political rights and civil liberties is of
some concern, the coefficients for the independent variable and all other control variables
maintain similar magnitudes and levels of significance in specifications that omit either
one of these two variables.
While the correlation between the political rights and civil liberties variables is
high, an analysis of the separate effects of each variable can explain why the regression
implies that terrorism increases with political rights and decreases with civil rights. If we
interpret a terrorist action as a statement of political beliefs intended to cause a change, it
makes sense that an increase in civil liberties would open other channels of expression
that would reduce reliance on terrorism as a form of expression. However, it is surprising
that an increase in political rights would increase terrorism. One possible explanation
might be that terrorism is committed by people who find political rights insufficient. The
measurement of political rights in the Freedom House data set uses a broad definition that
evaluates the electoral process, pluralism, and the functioning of government. Because
minority rights comprise a relatively small part of the calculation of this variable, a
general increase in political rights may reduce the power of people in the ethnic,
religious, or linguistic minority, resulting in an increase in terrorism.
Surprisingly, the results only offer weak support that terrorism increases with
Muslim share or ethno-linguistic fractionalization. The coefficients on Muslim share are
not precisely estimated even in the specifications without fixed effects, suggesting that
after controlling for wealth, literacy, and political and civil rights, there is no additional
effect of the prevalence of Islam. Finally, the positive coefficients on fractionalization
are significant only in the casualties regression (Specification 2). Because the index is

41

valued between 0 for a completely homogenous country and approaches 1 for a very
diverse one, even a large change in this variable has little effect on the number of terrorist
incidents or casualties.

Regression 4: Native Young Males and Terrorism

The results in Table A9 have been calculated using fertility as an instrument to
estimate the effect of the native young male share on the population. Though increasing
the total young male share does not affect terrorism, we might think that, especially in the
Middle East, the total young male share is heavily affected by immigrants who are less
likely to participate in terrorism. In addition, while the total young male share does not
affect terrorism according to the results above, the native young male share is more
directly linked to womens education, and so should be examined in the context of
terrorism as well. Again, the specifications for this regression include two options for the
dependent variable (incident count and casualties) and two options for fixed effects (with
and without).
My results estimate a positive but generally not significant effect of the native
young male share on terrorism. While the total young male share has mostly negative
coefficients, the native young male share coefficients are all positive. However, these
coefficients are not precisely estimated even in the regressions without fixed effects, and
so do not provide support for the theory that an increase in the native young male share
increases terrorism.
The coefficients on the control variables in Regression 4 are very similar to the
coefficient estimates from Regression 3. In general, the results from Regression 4 show

42

no clear relationship between GDP and terrorism, and positive but not significant
coefficients on literacy, Muslim share, and ethno-linguistic fractionalization. In addition,
the coefficients on political rights and civil liberties in each specification of Regression 4
are very similar to the corresponding specification of Regression 3. These results also
support the arguments above, that a simultaneous increase in political rights and civil
liberties reduces terrorism, that an increase in political rights alone will increase
terrorism, and that an increase in civil liberties alone will reduce terrorism.

7. Results Middle East and North Africa

Regression 1: Education and Fertility
The differences between the analysis of womens education and terrorism in the
developing countries and the MENA subset are apparent beginning with the first causal
step, the regression of fertility on education. At the outset, the results for the MENA
region in Table B6 look very different from the results for the developing countries data
set in Table A6. Unlike the developing country regressions, which show a strongly
significant negative effect of education on fertility, these regressions show coefficients of
similar magnitudes but without significance, which only offer weak support that womens
education will reduce fertility in the MENA region. Using the summary statistics found
in Tables B4 and B5 and the results for the fixed effects regression in Table B6, I find
that a one standard deviation increase in adult female literacy in this region results in a
reduction of the fertility rate by 1.6 children, which is about one standard deviation.
While the magnitude of this result is almost exactly the same as the one that uses the
developing countries data set, the estimates for the MENA region are not significant at

43

the 10% level in regressions with and without fixed effects. It is possible that the lack of
significance of this estimation comes from the smaller sample size available for the
MENA region. To begin with, there are fewer countries in the MENA region than in the
set of all developing countries. This data set is further restricted due to missing data from
a number of countries. However, it is also possible that there are region-specific reasons
why education does not reduce fertility in the Middle East. One possible explanation is
that increasing womens education does not increase womens control over fertility
decisions in this region, a change that is thought to negatively affect fertility.
The coefficient estimations for the controls in this regression are similar to the
developing country estimation. One important detail is that the controls for infant
mortality, GDP per capita, and Muslim share are less significant in the fixed effects
model for the MENA region than they were in the developing countries estimation. The
coefficient on infant mortality increases in magnitude but loses some significance,
providing support that a one standard deviation reduction in infant mortality would
reduce fertility by about one child, or 0.61 standard deviations. Similarly, the effect of a
one standard deviation increase in GDP per capita still increases fertility in the fixed
effects model for MENA, but loses significance as compared to the developing countries
estimation. Given the lack of significance of GDP in specifications with and without
fixed effects, and the opposite signs on these coefficients, it seems that there is no
evidence that GDP affects fertility at all in the MENA region. Finally, in the fixed effects
model, an increase in the Muslim share seems to increase fertility by about the same
amount in the MENA region as in the developing countries. This estimate is also not

44

significant, and so the positive relationship between Muslim share and fertility is only
weakly supported.

Regression 2: Fertility and Young Male Share

As shown in Table B7, the MENA countries experience an increase in the young
male share when fertility increases. However, the estimations of this effect as well as the
effects of almost all control variables do not maintain the significance levels found in the
analysis of developing countries. The developing countries estimation shows a fall in
significance when moving from the model without to the model with fixed effects, likely
because most of the variation in the control variables can be predicted by the values of
the fixed effects. In the MENA regressions, even the model without fixed effects has
only one significant coefficient estimations, which implies either that the causal trends of
the developing countries do not hold in the MENA region, or that the sample size is too
small to make precise estimates of the effects.
While the coefficient on the effect of fertility on young male share is not well
estimated, it is still positive. Because the magnitude of this coefficient is small, the
results imply that in the MENA region, a one standard deviation increase in fertility will
increase the young male share by only 0.44 of a standard deviation. This effect is much
smaller than the one-to-one increase between standard deviations of fertility and young
male share in the developing countries data analysis. One explanation for this difference
is immigration. Because a large percentage of the young male population in the MENA
region is part of the immigrant population, fertility rates are not a good predictor of the
total young male share.

45

Like fertility, the variables for sex ratio, GDP per capita, and literacy all are
significant in the developing countries analysis (without fixed effects) and not in the
MENA analysis. It is likely that both the effect of immigration and the small sample size
for the MENA region prevent a precise estimation of the effect of these domestic
characteristics on total young male share in MENA. It is surprising that infant mortality,
which was not a good predictor of young male share in the developing countries data set,
is significant in both specifications of the regression for the MENA region. The results
suggest that an increase in infant mortality increases young male share.

Regression 3: Young Male Share and Terrorism

Unlike earlier steps in the causal chain, the analysis of the effect of total young
male share on terrorism in the MENA region is very similar to the analysis for the
developing countries data set. Both sets of results support a negative finding for the
effect of young male share on terrorism. Table B8 shows the regression estimations for
the MENA region, which support the theory that an increase in the young male share
does not increase terrorism as measured by incident counts or casualties. In fact, the
coefficients on young male share for the MENA region are all negative and are larger
than the estimations for the developing countries data set. While these results are not all
well estimated, they certainly present strong evidence that a large young male share does
not increase terrorism. Furthermore, the coefficients on the total young male share in the
fixed effects regressions are negative and significant, suggesting that terrorism is lower
where there is a larger share of young males. If we think that this large young male share
is driven by immigration, then there is reason to expect that immigrants do not participate

46

in terrorism. Under this scenario, to study the determinants of terrorism, the variable of
interest should be the native young male share, which is analyzed in Regression 4.
Before moving to the analysis of Regression 4, it is worth noting that the MENA
regressions do not provide support for Krueger and Maleckovas hypothesis that
increasing wealth and education will reduce terrorism, and instead support the argument
that political factors are stronger determinants of terrorism. While it is possible that the
negative findings with respect to education and wealth are caused by the small sample
size of data used in these regressions, it is also possible that the perceived relationship
between these social and economic factors and terrorism is not pervasive, and that
political factors are more important determinants of terrorism. The various specifications
of Regression 3 for the MENA region support an argument for the relative importance of
political factors. They show that increasing political and civil rights is more effective at
reducing terrorism than increasing wealth, and certainly more effective than increasing
education, given the positive coefficient on the literacy variable.
As in the developing countries regressions, political rights and civil liberties are
highly correlated. However, the first specification for the MENA results, which uses
incident counts as the dependent variable and omits the fixed effects, shows that an
increase in both of these variables (a decrease in freedoms) will decrease the number of
incidents. The other three specifications follow the pattern found in the developing
countries analysis: when both political rights and civil liberties increase by one, the
relative degree of freedom falls, and the total effect is to increase terrorism by about 2
incidents and between 15 and 21 casualties over five years (with and without fixed
effects, respectively). Therefore, there is support for the argument that countries in the

47

MENA region with fewer rights experience more terrorism, as we would expect.
Furthermore, the signs on these coefficients remain as they were in the developing
countries estimations. These results support the theory that terrorism increases with
political rights and decreases with civil rights.

Regression 4: Native Young Males and Terrorism

The final set of results, shown in Table B9, use fertility as an instrument to
estimate the effect of the native young male share on the population. Regressions 1
through 3 for the MENA region were consistent with what we would expect given a large
amount of immigration of young males in to the MENA region. While these regressions
present evidence that the total young male share does not affect terrorism, it is possible
that the underlying variable of native young males is more closely linked to terrorism,
especially if immigrants are unlikely to participate in terrorist activities. However, my
results do not support the theory that a larger share of native young males will result in
terrorism.
The coefficients on native young male share in the instrumental variables
estimations in Regression 4 show no clear relationship between native young male share
and terrorism. The regressions of terrorism on total young male share show negative
coefficients on total young male share for almost all specifications in both the developing
countries and MENA data sets. In contrast, the coefficient on native young males is
positive (but not significant) for all four specifications of the developing countries
regression. The regressions of terrorism on native young males in the MENA region falls
between these results, showing a positive effect of native young males on terrorist

48

incidents but a negative effect of native young males on casualties. The standard errors
on all four specifications are so large that the coefficients on native young males are not
significant in any of the regressions. Given the opposite signs of these estimates and the
lack of significance, it is reasonable to conclude that the aggregate number of native
young males is unrelated to terrorism.
Just as these regressions do not demonstrate a strong relationship between native
young male share and terrorism, they also do not demonstrate any strong relationships
between the various control variables and terrorism. According to Krueger and
Maleckovas hypothesis, we should see a reduction in terrorism when there is an increase
in education or wealth. In addition, we would expect the MENA region to follow the
general trend of terrorism increasing with Muslim share and ethno-linguistic
fractionalization. However, the standard errors on these variables are very large
compared to the magnitude of the estimated coefficients, leaving almost all coefficient
estimates without any significance. As in the analysis of developing countries, the results
from Regression 4 show no clear relationship between GDP and terrorism. While the
developing countries analysis showed positive coefficients on literacy, Muslim share, and
ethno-linguistic fractionalization, the coefficients on these variables for the MENA
regressions fluctuate in direction, giving no evidence of a relationship between these
variables and terrorism. As with earlier analyses of the MENA region, it is possible that
the sample size is too limited to draw conclusions. However, the fluctuating directions of
these coefficients suggest that there is no existing trend in the data that will be supported
by the inclusion of additional observations. Only the political factors maintain
coefficients with the same sign across specifications of Regression 4. These directions

49

are also consistent with the signs in Regression 3, giving further evidence for the earlier
argument that terrorism increases with political rights, decreases with civil liberties, and
decreases when both political and civil rights are increased simultaneously.

8. Conclusion
My paper examines one effect of increased womens education upon terrorism.
Terrorism is a phenomenon that afflicts a diverse set of countries, including those that are
rich and poor, advanced and underdeveloped, democratic and lacking freedom. In order
to examine the effect of womens education upon terrorism, I focus on two regions in
which womens education is relatively low to begin with: the developing world and the
Middle East/North Africa region. There may be a number of competing effects of
womens education affecting the characteristics or frequency of terrorism. Because this
web of related factors is difficult to measure, I focus my research on one quantifiable
result of womens education: the effect of education on terrorism through changes in
fertility and country demographics.
My results provide evidence that womens education does significantly reduce
fertility in developing countries, which has a significant impact on reducing the young
male share of the population. However, in the developing world, there is no evidence
that a reduction in the male share will reduce terrorism. In order to examine the
possibility that terrorism is related to the native young male share instead of the total
young male share, I run additional regressions using fertility as an instrument for the
native young male share. These regressions extend my argument, supporting the theory
that the native young male share also does not affect terrorism.

50

Because much of my research is motivated by observation of low education, high

young male share, and high terrorism in the Middle East, I also analyze a subset of my
data, specific to a broadly defined Middle East/North Africa region that extends from
Algeria to Pakistan and north through much of Central Asia. In these countries, the basic
relationship between womens education and fertility is weaker, which weakens the
causal chain between womens education and terrorism. Results for the regression of
young male share on a lagged value of fertility are as expected: because immigration is
particularly high in this region, fertility is not a good predictor of total young male share
in this region. Finally, analyses of the effects of total young male share and native young
male share in this region also support the negative finding that these variables do not
affect terrorism.
In order to strengthen the results presented here, it would be useful to improve
upon the data set. While terrorism data is often hard to collect, the ITERATE data set
contains a wide array of information about international terrorist events. Unfortunately,
economic and political data on developing countries are not as complete. Further
exploration of available control variable data would be helpful, especially for countries in
the Middle East/North Africa region. Expanding the data set would lend more power to
the statistical estimates, which would help identify the various causes and correlates of
terrorism.
While terrorism has been experienced worldwide, many of the characteristics and
causes of terrorism vary across countries. My results demonstrate this point, as many of
the measured effects lose significance once I include country- and year-specific effects.
A helpful extension of this study would be to take some of the results from my cross-

51

country regressions and examine them in an even smaller geographic region to study the
effects of these same variables across time. For instance, comparing the direct effects of
wealth and education on political atmosphere in a few countries could illuminate the
circumstances under which low societal wealth and education can foment terrorism.
Similarly, further study of the interplay between political rights, civil liberties, and
terrorism would certainly be useful in unraveling the characteristics of environments that
lead to terrorism.
Any of the above extensions would shed further light on the determinants of
terrorism. The importance of this further study is only underscored by my negative
findings on the effect of young male share on terrorism, which show that prevailing
wisdom on the determinants of terrorism do not always hold empirically. In addition,
because my examination of the effect of womens education is limited to the
demographic channel, there are a number of effects of womens education that remain to
be studied either in country-specific or cross-country analyses. Increasing womens
education and national security are two trends that are already promoted by development
literature in general. Further exploration of the nexus of these two fields may shape
initiatives that could reduce the societal characteristics or individual motivations that
result in terrorism, increasing security and development around the world.

52

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54

Appendix: Summary and Regression Tables

Table 1: Percent of Population that is Male, Age 15-24

Region
Middle East
Africa
Asia
Europe
Northern America
Australia/New Zealand
Latin America & the
Caribbean
Less Developed Regions
More Developed Regions
World

1950
19.9
19.1
19.1
18.4
15.0
15.9
18.7

1960
17.6
18.5
17.5
16.2
13.8
15.3
17.8

1970
19.0
18.7
18.6
16.8
17.8
18.2
18.9

1980
19.7
19.3
19.6
17.3
19.4
18.5
20.3

1990
19.6
19.5
20.3
15.3
15.2
17.5
20.1

2000
19.5
20.6
17.9
14.6
14.3
15.8
19.9

19.0
17.8
18.6

17.6
15.9
17.1

18.7
17.4
18.3

19.8
17.5
19.3

20.3
15.3
19.2

18.7
14.4
17.8

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

Source: United Nations World Population Prospects Database

55

Table 2: Years with the Fewest and Most Terrorist Events

Rank

Year

Number of Events

1
2
3
4
5
|
|
179
180
181
182
183

1991
1993
1986
1985
1980

578
552
533
524
523

2000
2002
1968
1998
2001

167
130
123
95
52

Source: ITERATE Database

Table 3: Top Five Countries Producing Terrorists

Rank
1
2
3
4
5

Country

Terrorist Events
Committed by Nationals

Northern Ireland (United Kingdom)

Colombia
Iran
Lebanon
Turkey

596
420
348
340
295

Source: ITERATE Database

56

Table 4: Regional Means for Main Variables

Variable

Time Period

All
Countries

Developing
Countries

Middle East/
North Africa

Adult Female Literacy

1980-2000

69.56

60.15

57.13

Fertility

1980-2000

3.75

4.55

4.37

Young Male Share

1980-2000

9.25

9.87

9.66

Terrorist Incidents

1980-2000

8.23

7.56

13.12

Terrorist Casualties

1980-2000

26.82

28.58

61.81

Fertility (lagged)

1960-1980

5.00

6.01

6.18

Sex Ratio (lagged)

1960-1980

1.03

1.02

1.05

Infant Mortality (lagged)

1960-1980

82.58

105.82

99.53

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

Table 5: Regional Means for Control Variables

Variable

Time Period

All
Countries

Developing
Countries

Middle East/
North Africa

Female percentage of
labor force
Infant Mortality

1980-2000

37.34

35.85

27.10

1980-2000

49.38

64.85

48.75

GDP per capita

(in thousands)
GDP per capita growth

1980-2000

7.01

2.53

5.05

1980-2000

1.14

0.96

0.59

Muslim share of
population
Literacy

1980-2000

22.58

30.43

80.28

1980-2000

74.38

66.64

66.72

Political Rights

1980-2000

3.54

4.31

5.01

Civil Liberties

1980-2000

3.68

4.39

5.03

Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization

1980-2000

0.44

0.50

0.37

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

57

Table A4: Summary Statistics for Main Variables Developing Countries

Variable

Time
Period

Mean

Standard
Deviation

Minimum

Maximum

Adult Female Literacy

1980-2000

60.15

27.49

2.67

95

Fertility

1980-2000

4.55

1.69

1.18

9.93

Young Male Share

1980-2000

9.87

0.73

6.46

12.47

Terrorist Incidents

1980-2000

7.56

18.49

169

Terrorist Casualties

1980-2000

28.58

86.70

1098

Fertility (lagged)

1960-1980

6.01

1.36

1.74

10.13

Sex Ratio (lagged)

1960-1980

1.02

0.03

0.94

1.14

Infant Mortality (lagged)

1960-1980

105.82

45.78

10.04

263.2

Table A5: Summary Statistics for Control Variables Developing Countries

Variable

Minimum

Maximum

35.85

Standard
Deviation
9.69

5.10

52.46

1980-2000

64.85

38.47

3.14

191.20

GDP per capita

(in thousands)
GDP per capita growth

1980-2000

2.53

3.99

0.05

35.40

1980-2000

0.96

6.29

-51.94

100.84

Muslim share of
population
Literacy

1980-2000

30.43

38.32

100

1980-2000

66.64

23.26

7.95

95

Political Rights

1980-2000

4.31

1.94

Civil Liberties

1980-2000

4.39

1.55

Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization

1980-2000

0.50

0.27

0.92

Female percentage of
labor force
Infant Mortality

Time
Period
1980-2000

Mean

58

Table A6 - Regression 1: Fertility and Adult Female Literacy, OLS

Specification
Dependent variable:
Fixed effects:
Adult Female Literacy
Female percentage of
labor force
Infant Mortality
GDP per capita
GDP per capita
growth
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)
fertility
none
-0.025
(0.006)***
-0.033
(0.013)***
0.025
(0.004)***
0.014
(0.022)
-0.016
(0.008)**
-0.004
(0.003)
90
0.733
1702

(2)
fertility
year and country
-0.041
(0.015)***
-0.011
(0.019)
0.018
(0.005)***
0.041
(0.016)**
-0.001
(0.003)
0.062
(0.024)**
90
0.973
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

Table A7 Regression 2: Young Males and Fertility, OLS

Dependent variable:
Fixed effects:
Fertilityt-20
Sex Ratiot-20
Infant Mortalityt-20
GDP per capita
Literacy
No. of countries
R2
Observations

Specification
(1)
(2)
young male share
young male share
no fixed effects
year and country
0.307
0.603
(0.061)***
(0.081)***
6.622
-1.817
(1.850)***
(4.002)
-0.002
0.009
(0.002)
(0.006)
-0.063
-0.077
(0.017)***
(0.079)
0.012
0.017
(0.003)***
(0.014)
90
90
0.322
0.384
1702
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

59

Table A8 Regression 3: Terrorism and Young Males, OLS

Specification
Terrorism
measure:
Fixed effects:
Young Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

incident count

casualties

incident count

casualties

none

none

0.458
(1.102)
-0.647
(0.242)***
0.182
(0.075)**
-2.875
(1.027)***
3.520
(1.262)***
0.101
(0.058)*
3.254
(5.442)
90
0.070
1702

-11.850
(8.712)
-1.575
(1.106)
0.639
(0.317)**
-15.656
(4.587)***
23.024
(6.481)***
-2.773
(19.149)
0.422
(0.197)**
90
0.074
1702

year and
country
-3.464
(1.403)**
-0.726
(0.511)
0.312
(0.279)
-0.093
(0.807)
0.331
(0.957)
0.314
(0.275)
--90
0.643
1702

year and
country
-27.654
(19.987)
-6.443
(5.978)
3.945
(2.578)
-7.968
(3.310)**
12.965
(4.810)***
5.169
(3.284)
--90
0.440
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

60

Table A9 Regression 4: Terrorism and Native Young Males, IV

Specification
Terrorism
measure:
Fixed effects:
Native Young
Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

incident count

casualties

incident count

casualties

none

none

4.746
(2.588)*
-0.340
(0.268)
0.156
(0.072)**
-2.504
(0.991)**
3.339
(1.239)***
0.089
(0.056)
3.936
(5.528)
90
0.045
1702

13.149
(12.652)
0.216
(1.799)
0.486
(0.282)*
-13.495
(4.442)***
21.970
(6.048)***
0.348
(0.174)**
1.202
(19.976)
90
0.036
1702

year and
country
0.997
(2.980)
-0.280
(0.438)
0.002
(0.411)
0.104
(0.809)
0.301
(0.960)
0.030
(0.356)
--90
0.632
1702

year and
country
4.022
(10.725)
-3.279
(4.487)
1.741
(1.955)
-6.574
(3.289)**
12.750
(4.461)***
3.148
(2.616)
--90
0.415
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

61

Table B4: Summary Statistics for Main Variables MENA Region

Variable

Time
Period

Mean

Standard
Deviation

Minimum

Maximum

Adult Female Literacy

1980-2000

57.13

25.13

13.89

95

Fertility

1980-2000

4.37

1.66

1.18

9.93

Young Male Share

1980-2000

9.66

0.88

7.42

12.15

Terrorist Incidents

1980-2000

13.12

24.72

156

Terrorist Casualties

1980-2000

61.81

136.57

1098

Fertility (lagged)

1960-1980

6.18

1.61

2.24

10.13

Sex Ratio (lagged)

1960-1980

1.05

0.02

1.00

1.10

Infant Mortality (lagged)

1960-1980

99.53

48.24

15.68

186.80

Table B5: Summary Statistics for Control Variables MENA Region

Variable

Minimum

Maximum

27.10

Standard
Deviation
10.77

5.10

48.60

1980-2000

48.75

30.54

6.06

126.56

GDP per capita

(in thousands)
GDP per capita growth

1980-2000

5.05

6.07

0.20

35.40

1980-2000

0.59

6.46

-38.70

25.01

Muslim share of
population
Literacy

1980-2000

80.28

29.17

100

1980-2000

66.72

19.98

27.82

95

Political Rights

1980-2000

5.01

1.69

1.00

Civil Liberties

1980-2000

5.03

1.47

1.00

Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization

1980-2000

0.37

0.23

0.03

0.79

Female percentage of
labor force
Infant Mortality

Time
Period
1980-2000

Mean

62

Table B6 Regression 1: Fertility and Adult Female Literacy, OLS

Specification
Dependent variable:
Fixed effects:
Adult Female Literacy
Female percentage of
labor force
Infant Mortality
GDP per capita
GDP per capita
growth
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)
fertility
none
-0.015
(0.012)
-0.113
(0.025)***
0.017
(0.007)**
-0.041
(0.029)
-0.020
(0.009)**
-0.012
(0.007)
22
0.734
382

(2)
fertility
year and country
-0.064
(0.040)
-0.031
(0.051)
0.033
(0.015)**
0.018
(0.016)
-0.007
(0.004)*
0.062
(0.049)
22
0.965
382

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

Table B7 Regression 2: Young Males and Fertility, OLS

Dependent variable:
Fixed effects:
Fertilityt-20
Sex Ratiot-20
Infant Mortalityt-20
GDP per capita
Literacy
No. of countries
R2
Observations

Specification
(1)
(2)
young male share
young male share
no fixed effects
year and country
0.241
0.060
(0.090)**
(0.089)
4.545
2.220
(4.502)
(9.536)
0.008
0.026
(0.004)**
(0.011)**
-0.030
-0.033
(0.022)
(0.043)
0.017
0.115
(0.010)
(0.031)***
22
22
0.382
0.794
382
382

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

63

Table B8 Regression 3: Terrorism and Young Males, OLS

Terrorism measure:
Fixed effects:
Young Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)
incident count
none
-1.320
(2.887)
-1.004
(0.421)**
0.113
(0.160)
-7.768
(2.647)***
5.346
(2.063)**
0.310
(0.147)**
15.377
(21.408)
22
0.192
382

Specification
(2)
(3)
casualties
incident count
year and
none
country
-37.327
-7.698
(36.055)
(3.199)**
-1.046
-0.132
(1.676)
(0.584)
0.153
0.541
(0.853)
(1.006)
-23.501
-0.053
(11.294)**
(1.118)
44.931
2.303
(18.544)**
(1.536)
-24.760
0.239
(79.542)
(1.181)
0.646
--(0.845)
22
22
0.215
0.626
382
382

(4)
casualties
year and
country
-115.546
(66.086)*
1.949
(3.431)
17.166
(8.769)*
-11.577
(7.884)
26.828
(13.278)*
25.603
(10.979)**
--22
0.513
382

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

64

Table B9 Regression 4: Terrorism and Native Young Males, IV

Specification
Terrorism
measure:
Fixed effects:
Native Young
Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
Ethno-linguistic
fractionalization
No. of countries
R2
Observations

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

incident count

casualties

incident count

casualties

none

none

58.323
(65.760)
0.907
(2.343)
-0.002
(0.425)
-2.654
(4.711)
0.104
(6.742)
-0.704
(1.136)
39.313
(43.397)
22
-384

-24.185
(118.562)
-0.625
(3.545)
0.128
(0.974)
-22.374
(13.974)
43.775
(22.346)*
0.422
(2.187)
-19.485
(99.003)
22
0.097
384

year and
country
14.689
(33.752)
-1.626
(2.735)
-1.425
(2.953)
-0.502
(1.683)
0.479
(4.296)
-1.964
(4.109)
---

year and
country
-157.989
(134.701)
4.782
(9.112)
20.892
(14.586)
-10.726
(9.019)
30.287
(17.798)
29.780
(16.676)*
---

22
0.493
384

22
0.498
384

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to
significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

65

Table 10 Regression 3: Native Young Males and Terrorist Incidents: Regional Estimates using OLS and Fixed Effects

Specification
Terrorism
measure:
Fixed Effects:
Region:
Young Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
Observations

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

Middle East/
North Africa

Asia

Latin America

Africa

Less Developed
Countries

-2.404
(1.715)
-0.805
(0.668)
0.640
(0.698)
0.067
(1.006)
-2.313
(3.123)
0.381
(0.634)
21
357

-4.113
(2.915)
-1.221
(2.201)
-0.704
(0.603)
0.654
(2.781)
2.205
(2.119)
-2.440
(1.488)
22
462

-0.875
(1.160)
-1.783
(1.852)
0.422
(0.314)
-0.231
(0.262)
1.588
(0.886)*
-0.184
(0.406)
36
686

-3.464
(1.403)**
-0.726
(0.511)
0.312
(0.279)
-0.093
(0.807)
0.331
(0.957)
0.314
(0.275)
90
1702

year and
country
More
Developed
Countries
-5.086
(3.223)
0.435
(0.419)
0.613
(1.101)
-5.890
(3.475)*
2.460
(3.592)
-1.214
(1.360)
37
674

-7.698
(3.199)**
-0.132
(0.584)
0.541
(1.006)
-0.053
(1.118)
2.303
(1.536)
0.239
(1.181)
22
382

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

66

Table 11 Regression 3: Native Young Males and Terrorist Casualties: Regional Estimates using OLS and Fixed Effects
Specification
(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Terrorism
measure:

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

Fixed Effects:

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

Middle East/
North Africa

Asia

Latin America

Africa

Less Developed
Countries

year and
country
More
Developed
Countries
2.708
(12.001)
-0.197
(1.883)
6.655
(4.069)
-6.139
(13.278)
8.635
(13.995)
-7.236
(4.850)
37
674

Region:
Young Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
Observations

-115.546
(66.086)*
1.949
(3.431)
17.166
(8.769)*
-11.577
(7.884)
26.828
(13.278)*
25.603
(10.979)**
22
382

-11.943
(17.085)
-2.136
(5.348)
-0.090
(4.887)
-10.687
(8.108)
11.668
(6.994)
6.847
(2.833)**
21
357

-1.039
(8.575)
1.078
(14.210)
-2.993
(2.225)
-8.941
(5.864)
18.910
(8.558)**
-0.642
(6.009)
22
462

-7.237
(5.495)
-18.618
(12.247)
1.561
(1.453)
-1.196
(2.414)
3.666
(5.190)
-1.578
(1.927)
36
686

-27.654
(19.987)
-6.443
(5.978)
3.945
(2.578)
-7.968
(3.310)**
12.965
(4.810)***
5.169
(3.284)
90
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

67

Table 12 Regression 4: Native Young Males and Terrorist Incidents: Regional Estimates using IV and Fixed Effects

Specification
Terrorism
measure:
Fixed Effects:
Region:
Native Young
Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
Observations

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

incident count

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

Middle East/
North Africa

Asia

Latin America

Africa

Less Developed
Countries

-2.137
(1.280)
-0.757
(0.578)
0.662
(0.661)
0.104
(0.912)
-2.371
(3.007)
0.348
(0.541)
21
357

-2.061
(3.181)
-1.090
(1.814)
-0.960
(0.696)
0.765
(2.778)
2.200
(2.118)
-2.752
(1.536)*
22
462

1.500
(5.210)
-1.002
(2.903)
0.385
(0.323)
-0.352
(0.382)
1.615
(0.890)*
-0.264
(0.408)
36
686

0.997
(2.980)
-0.280
(0.438)
0.002
(0.411)
0.104
(0.809)
0.301
(0.96)
0.030
(0.356)
90
1702

year and
country
More
Developed
Countries
-5.271
(3.966)
0.434
(0.411)
0.619
(1.092)
-5.958
(3.348)*
2.470
(3.534)
-1.244
(1.375)
37
674

-7.698
(3.199)**
-0.132
(0.584)
0.541
(1.006)
-0.053
(1.118)
2.303
(1.536)
0.239
(1.181)
22
382

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

68

Table 13 Regression 4: Native Young Males and Terrorist Casualties: Regional Estimates using IV and Fixed Effects
Specification
(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Terrorism
measure:

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

casualties

Fixed Effects:

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

year and
country

Middle East/
North Africa

Asia

Latin America

Africa

Less Developed
Countries

year and
country
More
Developed
Countries
-13.509
(12.442)
-0.300
(2.011)
7.158
(4.295)
-12.084
(13.736)
9.463
(13.412)
-9.841
(5.917)
37
674

Region:
Native Young
Males
GDP per capita
Literacy
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Muslim share of
population
No. of countries
Observations

-200.181
(89.095)**
10.326
(9.535)
28.752
(8.898)***
-17.671
(15.566)
27.791
(24.642)
39.871
(14.291)**
11
203

-1.345
(18.787)
-0.263
(6.146)
0.789
(5.167)
-9.221
(9.082)
9.376
(7.550)
5.554
(2.891)*
21
357

3.692
(4.905)
1.381
(14.553)
-3.584
(2.134)
-8.686
(5.823)
18.898
(8.500)**
-1.360
(6.155)
22
462

-4.889
(24.488)
-17.846
(14.281)
1.524
(1.542)
-1.316
(2.856)
3.694
(5.059)
-1.657
(2.224)
36
686

4.022
(10.725)
-3.279
(4.487)
1.741
(1.955)
-6.574
(3.289)**
12.750
(4.461)***
3.148
(2.616)
90
1702

Standard errors in parentheses are robust and clustered at the country level. 1, 2 or 3 stars refer to significance at the 10, 5 or 1% levels, respectively.

See Table 14 for list of countries included in each region.

69

Table 14: Region Definitions

Region:

Countries Included:

Middle East/
North Africa

Algeria, Armenia, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan,
Yemen
Armenia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Maldives,
Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand,
Uzbekistan, Vietnam
Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
Trinidad, Uruguay, Venezuela
Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Comoros, Congo
Brazzaville, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia
Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil,
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros,
Congo Brazzaville, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji,
Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan,
Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria,
Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore,
South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo,
Trinidad, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam,
Yemen, Zambia
Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States

Asia
Latin America
Africa

Less Developed Countries

[Africa, Latin America, Asia
(excluding Japan), the
Caribbean, Melanesia,
Micronesia, and Polynesia]

More Developed Countries

[Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
United States, Canada, and all
the countries of Europe]
All Countries

Combines Less and More Developed Countries

70

71