Date of Graduation

Spring 5-23-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)

College/School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

International and Development Economics

First Advisor

Jesse Antilla-Hughes

Second Advisor

Elizabeth Katz

Third Advisor

Alessandra Cassar

Abstract

Armed conflict has documented effects on income, health, education, and labor markets, but its consequences for women’s access to information have not been quantified at the individual level across multiple country contexts. This thesis estimates the relationship between conflict exposure and women’s access to traditional media and digital information channels using individual-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) linked to geocoded conflict event data from ACLED, covering five countries (Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Jordan, and Tajikistan), across 18 survey waves between 2007 and 2024. A two-way fixed effects difference-in- differences specification exploits within-region variation in five-year log conflict intensity. A one- unit increase in log conflict reduces the probability that a woman has weekly exposure to any of television, radio, or newspaper by 5.8 percentage points (p < 0.05) and reduces internet use by 16.2 percentage points (p < 0.01), while mobile-phone ownership is essentially unchanged. The use- versus-ownership asymmetry in digital outcomes, the sharpening of the media effect under a violent-events-only restriction, and the channel-wide deterioration across television, radio, and newspaper jointly point to infrastructure disruption as the dominant mechanism. Social connectedness, measured by Meta’s Social Connectedness Index, does not moderate the conflict effect. A complementary stacked-sample specification using DHS men’s-recode data finds that the marginal conflict effect on information access does not differ systematically by sex. The findings extend the empirical conflict literature to the information environment and argue for treating telecommunications and broadcast continuity as a humanitarian priority alongside food, shelter, and medical care.

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