How national structures shape attitudes toward women’s right to employment in the Middle East

Abstract

Despite dramatic human development in recent decades, women’s employment rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are the lowest in the world. Research shows that gender-egalitarian attitudes are key in explaining women’s employment. This study examines whether the Middle East stands out in terms of the degree to which individuals hold gender-egalitarian attitudes in the region and in terms of the factors that are most important in shaping attitudes toward women’s employment. I compare individual attitudes toward women’s right to employment in the MENA region to individual attitudes in a global selection of nations available in the fourth (1999–2004) wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) (N = 57), using hierarchical linear models. I find that individuals in MENA hold significantly less egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment, compared to those in all other nations sampled. There is not one variable (such as Islam or oil) that is key to explaining attitudes in the region. Instead, this negative regional effect is reduced by accounting for national religiosity, levels of female tertiary enrollment, shares of women in parliament, economic rights for women, and national economic development. However, the negative effect of being highly religious is magnified among those individuals living in MENA nations.