Food insecurity and affective well-being during COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic and climate crises have led to unprecedented food insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with ramifications for people's affective well-being. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between food insecurity and affective well-being in Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, considering varied social protection responses across these countries. METHODS: We analyzed data from the COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Panel Survey (2020-2021) and employed hybrid mixed-effects models to differentiate within-person and between-person associations between food insecurity and affective well-being. RESULTS: The findings show that higher food insecurity is associated with worse affective well-being, with significant cross-country differences. In Jordan, where extensive social protection was enacted during the pandemic, there is no significant within- or between-person association between food insecurity and affective well-being. By contrast, significant between-person associations are found in Morocco and Egypt, while within- and between-person associations are evidenced in Tunisia. These associations hold strong after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and household circumstances. LIMITATIONS: Given COVID-19 restrictions, the sample was limited to the universe of working-age (18-64) mobile phone users, a demographic that often corresponds to higher levels of education and income. Therefore, the results of this study likely provide conservative estimates of the association between food insecurity and affective well-being in the full population. CONCLUSIONS: The findings emphasize the critical role of food security in maintaining affective well-being, particularly in non-Western contexts during global crises. They underline the importance of integrating food security considerations into mental health care strategies and interventions.

Gender, Resources, and Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Egypt Before and After the Arab Spring.

This study draws on resource and feminist theories to empirically test the influence of women's resources and gender performance on psychological and physical intimate partner violence (IPV) in Egypt. Having applied two-stage least squares regressions to nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Survey (N = 11,319), the results show that women's education and employment reduce their risk of physical IPV and that the effect of women's employment on IPV is moderated by their spouses' employment, with the lowest risk of physical IPV observed among employed women with unemployed or blue-collar spouses. Women's employment and relative education were not associated with the risk of psychological IPV. While education and employment remain among the strongest deterrents of physical IPV, there was no moderation effect found before or after the Arab Spring for psychological and physical IPV.