Legal Reform Versus Private Action: Experimental Evidence on Attitudes Toward Gender Equal Inheritance From Tunisia

Abstract

Gender-discriminatory inheritance law persists in many countries, restricting women’s access to land, property and financial assets. In the absence of legal reform, individual action may offer a second-best solution. This paper investigates the extent to which favoring daughters with gifts is viewed as a socially acceptable way of privately attenuating the gender discrimination imposed by Islamic inheritance law in Tunisia. In a randomised experiment I test the impact of providing information on public support for inheritance law reform and/or the possibility to give a gift to one’s daughter on inheritance-related gender attitudes. Descriptive evidence suggests high levels of acceptance of compensating daughters with gifts, especially among higher-income individuals. Demand for legal reform is significantly higher among women and individuals with low education. The effectiveness of the informational treatments is mixed: the treatment effects on several inheritance-related gender attitudes are positive and marginally significant, but the effect is not long-lasting. By demonstrating that informational and social norms interventions may fail in the presence of strong baseline beliefs, this study contributes to the literature on misperceived social norms and the effectiveness of informational interventions in shaping gender norms and political attitudes. Given the current legal restrictions, I conclude that gifting is a socially accepted practice in Tunisia. However, since its use is restricted to a wealthy subset of the population who holds progressive gender attitudes, it is unlikely to be a sustainable alternative to legal reform in the long run.