Determinants of female genital cutting: comparison of Egypt and Ethiopia from 2005 until 2016

This paper empirically investigates the determinants of female genital cuttingbetween 2005 and 2016 in Egypt and Ethiopia. The practice is decreasing in thesecountries but remains very present despite the fact that it has been aninternationally recognized human rights violation. It is interesting to target thedeterminants of this phenomenon in order to be able to fight against it. Theempirical literature has shown different views about it. This paper used fourdatabases from the Democratic Health Survey: in Egypt in 2008 and 2014 and inEthiopia in 2005 and 2016. Using logit regression, the evidence is as follows. Awoman who has been circumcised is more likely to want the practice to continue.Her level of education and that of her husband, whether she is employed or not,her residential environment, and her religion would also have an impact on herposition. Regarding the age of the woman, we do not obtain satisfactory resultsand can therefore not conclude anything about it. Based on these findings and theexisting literature, this paper proposes a number of policy recommendations toreduce FGC