Empowerment or Backsliding? Female Rebel Combatants and the Status of Women Post-Conflict

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between the prevalence of female combatants and armed rebellion with post-conflict outcomes. Particularly, it probes whether the increased employment of rebel women on the frontlines of battle generates greater gains for women upon the conflict’s conclusion. It utilizes recently published cross-sectional data from the Women in Armed Rebellion (WAAR) dataset which disaggregates women’s contributions to armed rebellion into 22 measures and then rates the prevalence of qualifying variables on a four-point ordinal scale, where 1 = low levels of women’s involvement and 4 = high. I utilize an indicator measuring the prevalence of women’s employment to test whether variation in the quantity of a rebel group’s female combatants impacts the status of women in post-conflict society. Ultimately, I find no relationship of significant nor substantive significance between women’s prevalence on the frontline of rebel conflict and the status of women post-conflict, but I do uncover a potential relationship between post-conflict outcomes and whether a state legally imposes a given religion on its citizens.