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.

Keywords

Comparative gender attitudes hierarchical regression Middle East women’s employment

Introduction

Over the last 50 years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region¹ experienced rapid demographic changes and dramatic improvements in human well-being. The average age of marriage for women rose substantially, while the fertility rate dropped from approximately 7 children in 1960 to 2.7 in 2012 (Roudi-Fahimi and Kent, 2008; Suzuki, 2014). Women also made tremendous gains in education: primary school enrollment is ‘high or universal’ in most MENA nations, gender gaps in secondary education closed or disappeared in many, and women in the region are much more likely to enroll in college than they were in the past (Roudi-Fahimi and Moghadam, 2003). The United Nations (UN) Human Development Report, which ranks countries using an index of life expectancy, adult literacy, gross enrollment in education, and standard of living, classified most MENA nations as having High or Very High levels of human development in 2014 (Human Development Index, 2014).²

However, while in many ways the MENA region is modernizing economically and socially, fewer women in MENA participate in the formal labor force than in any other region in the world (Ross, 2008). Attitudes toward women’s employment are an important factor in explaining cross-national differences in women’s employment rates, occupational sex-segregation, and women’s employment patterns (Van der Lippe and Van Dijk, 2002). If individuals in the MENA region hold less gender-egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment, this is an important factor in explaining women’s low labor force participation. This leads to the following question: Are attitudes toward women’s employment in MENA unique in comparison to other regions of the world, and if so, what regional characteristics help explain this?

The importance of women’s employment at the individual and societal level is well documented. Women’s employment is associated with better perceived health (Schnittker, 2007), improved child well-being (Smith, 1985), and leads to increased political participation for women (Moghadam, 2003). Women in positions of political power are more likely to focus on ‘women’s interest legislation’ such as women’s education and health, equal pay, freedom from discrimination, and affirmative action. Women’s employment can also boost national economies by utilizing a neglected financial resource and increasing the nation’s pool of talent (Moghadam, 1998). Thus, the share of women employed in the paid non-agricultural sector is one of the World Bank’s (2003) key indicators of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The importance of attitudes

There is a multitude of factors that contribute to women’s employment rates and patterns cross-nationally from population demographics (such as the age structure of a particular society) to economic factors (such as the unemployment rate). Attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment (sometimes referred to as gender ideology or norms, and an important component of women’s social status) are another key factor in explaining women’s employment (Van der Lippe and Van Dijk, 2002). However, while intuitively we expect that gender role attitudes vary cross-nationally, we have little concrete evidence of the degree to which they vary and the factors that influence gender-egalitarian attitudes at the societal and individual level.

Such cultural attitudes are very important because of their ability to challenge or reinforce social status differences between men and women as well as the legal rights and institutional power of each gender. Gender ideology is linked to very specific outcomes in the political, economic, and cultural spheres. In their recent review of the literature on gender ideology, Davis and Greenstein (2009) specify the outcomes associated with egalitarian gender attitudes within the United States: increased employment and earnings for women, higher educational aspirations among both boys and girls, and greater earnings for mothers. Clearly, beliefs about women’s right to paid work impact not just their employment rates, but other measures of their status and well-being. However, there are relatively few comparative examinations of gender-egalitarian attitudes that include more than just a few countries, and no large cross-national examinations of attitudes toward women’s employment that include the relative impact of national and individual factors.

Attitudes toward women’s employment cross-nationally

Much of the literature on the factors influencing individual attitudes toward women’s employment (as well as the bulk of the literature on gender-egalitarian attitudes in other spheres) continues to focus on Western nations (see Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Davis and Greenstein, 2009), so we know less about the formation of individual attitudes in other regions, such as the MENA. Also, as Yu and Lee (2013: 592) make clear, previous comparative work on individual gender attitudes often posited national effects, but has not had a sufficiently large sample of countries to use multilevel models to simultaneously examine the impact of national and individual factors on attitudes, making it ‘difficult to separate the effects of national contexts from those of differences in population composition among countries’ (see Baxter and Kane, 1995; Inglehart and Norris, 2003a). Multilevel studies that do examine the relative importance of national and individual factors in shaping gender attitudes are still limited (however, see Price, 2014; Steel and Kabashima, 2008; Yu and Lee, 2013). While none of these studies examine attitudes specifically toward women’s equal right to employment or focus on the case of the MENA region, they do provide information on the national and individual factors shaping gender attitudes, which is used in specifying the models for this article.

Theoretical background

There are two main bodies of literature relevant to this study; the first is literature which examines factors shaping gender egalitarianism cross-nationally, and the second is literature which examines determinants of women’s employment rates cross-nationally. I draw on both of these in specifying the models for this study. I categorize the factors that are used to explain gender egalitarianism and women’s employment patterns into categories of cultural, economic, demographic, and political.

The cultural approach to examining women’s employment and gender-egalitarian attitudes in MENA historically focused on the role of Islam. These cultural explanations view women’s low employment in the region as attributable to women’s low status and the lack of gender equality in the region, which in turn is shaped by Islamic laws and norms and accompanying paternalistic attitudes (e.g. Inglehart and Norris, 2003a). However, recent research suggests that the focus on Islam as the key contextual factor may be misplaced. Studies developed an alternative view: Islam may not have any significant effect on gender egalitarianism in comparison to other religious traditions, but high levels of personal religiosity (which are found in Islamic societies) may be detrimental to gender egalitarianism (Christensen and Sjørup, 2009; Seguino, 2010). Other recent research suggests that more conservative policies regarding women’s legal rights may be a quality of the MENA region itself, rather than of Muslim societies (Frank et al., 2010).

A second explanation for women’s low employment levels in MENA is economic factors. Modernization theorists view countries as potentially transitioning through a series of progressively more developed stages; higher development is viewed as spurring cultural change, which includes more gender-egalitarian ideology (see Inglehart and Norris, 2003a). High unemployment rates in MENA may also explain women’s low representation in the labor force (see Moghadam, 2003). More recently, researchers argued that the heavy reliance of many MENA nations on oil creates an economic (and cultural) environment that is not conducive to women’s employment (see Ross, 2008).

Demographic structures, including total fertility rates and women’s share of higher education, may also influence attitudes toward women’s employment. As women’s education increases and gender gaps in literacy rates decrease, gender attitudes will likely become more egalitarian.

A final explanatory category focuses on political factors that may affect women’s employment rates. Low levels of democracy in the MENA region may explain limited gender equality (Inglehart et al., 2002). National shares of women legislators are also a political factor that likely impacts gender attitudes.

What factors are most important in explaining attitudes toward women’s employment in the MENA region? And how do attitudes toward women’s employment in the MENA region differ from individual attitudes in other areas? To answer this, I examine multiple structural and individual factors that previous literature found shape attitudes toward women’s employment. I also incorporate predictors that were successful in explaining women’s employment to determine whether they also impact attitudes toward women’s right to work.

Dependent variable: attitudes toward women’s rights to employment

The dependent variable for this study is attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. Individuals are asked to state their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement saying that in periods of job scarcity, women should have the same right to employment as men. In the following section, I summarize the factors shown to successfully predict gender-egalitarian attitudes or women’s employment rates.

The cultural argument

Religiosity

A major focus in the literature examining women’s status in MENA is the role of religious culture. Much of this has focused on the role of Islam, seeing it as unique among world religions in justifying and perpetuating the subordination of women. Inglehart and Norris (2003b) argued that attitudes toward gender equality and women’s status is the true divide between Muslim and non-Muslim societies. There are multiple Middle Eastern feminist theorists who see Islam as inherently patriarchal (e.g. Fatima Mernissi and Alya Baffoun) (Badron, 1988). However, there are also theorists who argue that feminism and Islam are compatible, and it is corruptions of Islam, or Islam used to justify patriarchal norms and laws, that are problematic (see Archer, 2007; Moghadam, 2002).

Recent findings suggest that it is not Islam itself that is the barrier, but the high levels of personal religiosity that are found within Islamic societies, relative to other societies. Earlier research showed that low levels of individual religiosity are associated with gender-egalitarian sentiment (Banaszak and Plutzer, 1993). Recent research now suggests that at the national level, high mean levels of religiosity may be associated with a more patriarchal population, regardless of predominant religion. Research using the WVS finds that religiosity itself (in terms of intensity of belief), controlling for both a country’s predominant religion and individual religious affiliation, is consistently associated with less egalitarian gender ideology (Seguino, 2010: 10). Furthermore, ‘no one religion stands out as consistently more gender inequitable in its effects than all the others’, which the author notes contrasts with research that argued that Islam has a uniquely negative effect on gender ideology (Seguino, 2010). The negative impact on gender ideology that is associated with predominantly Muslim societies may in fact be due to highly religious populations in Muslim countries. In predominantly Muslim countries, individuals express greater personal or subjective religiosity than individuals residing in other countries (Seguino, 2010).

The variable used in the present research to measure religiosity differs from those used in the existing literature in that it combines three variables from the WVS into a single index of religiosity in order to increase content validity of the measure. Previous research used a single WVS item to measure religiosity, which asked individuals to report on the importance of religion in their lives, and also controlled for religious denomination and frequency of attendance at religious services (see Seguino, 2010).

Argument for a regional effect

Recent research on the cross-national adoption of sex law reforms (e.g. laws criminalizing marital rape) suggests that there may be a regional effect on gender policies rather than an effect of dominant religion. In an examination of sex law reforms adopted between 1965 and 2005, being a MENA nation was found to significantly decrease adoption of sex-laws, while being a Muslim society had no effect (Frank et al., 2010). Thus, residing in MENA is expected to have a negative impact on individual gender attitudes in comparison to living in other regions.

National demographic factors shaping gender attitudes

National demographic trends relevant to women’s status also likely shape attitudes toward their right to employment. Two important trends in the MENA region are a recent drop in fertility rates and a substantial rise in women’s tertiary enrollment.

Fertility

Individuals in countries with higher fertility rates may have less egalitarian attitudes toward women’s right to employment due to women’s greater care-taking responsibilities. In preindustrial societies (both past and contemporary), women were able to combine agricultural work and other tasks with childcare. Industrialization tends to increase the distance women have to travel to work and changes the type of work women are performing to a kind less compatible with childcare (Brewster, 2000). Despite a dramatic drop in women’s fertility rates in the MENA region, rates remain higher than in many other areas of the world. Accounting for differences in fertility rates may contribute to explaining less egalitarian attitudes.

Women’s tertiary education rates

Female tertiary education rates reflect women’s status and educational opportunities. The MENA region has made huge strides in reducing the male–female disparity in education. In many MENA nations, more women than men are now enrolling in and completing tertiary education, although they remain overrepresented in traditional female majors (World Bank, 2007). The World Bank notes that the lower percentage of men entering universities than women is likely due to the fact that more men than women are able to obtain lucrative jobs without this qualification. However, with the rising age of marriage, women have the option of entering the labor force or continuing their schooling (World Bank, 2007).

Examining the trends in men’s and women’s tertiary gross enrollment³ over the 1990s reveals that the vast majority of the nations in the MENA region saw increases in both men’s and women’s tertiary enrollment, and a substantial closing of the gender gap. There are two exceptions to this: in Turkey, the gender gap increased slightly over the 1990s, from 7.9 in 1990 to 8.1 in 1999, and in Egypt, the gender gap stayed relatively stable over the decade (Education Statistics (Edstats), n.d.). Notably, both Jordan and Saudi Arabia saw more women than men enrolled in tertiary education by the end of the decade. In Saudi Arabia, there was a dramatic change: the nation began the 1990s with a gender gap of 1.1, but ended the decade with a gender gap of −8.1 (Education Statistics (Edstats), n.d.). Furthermore, there is substantial variation in women’s tertiary enrollment across the region.

A recent multilevel examination of attitudes toward maternal employment and gender equality at home finds that countries that provide women with greater educational and employment opportunities also have publics that are more supportive of employed mothers (Yu and Lee, 2013). It is reasonable to expect that countries in which women have a greater presence in higher education will have populaces that are more supportive of women’s equal right to employment.

The economies of the MENA region and attitudes toward women’s employment

Attitudes toward women’s employment in MENA may be influenced by perceived or actual economic constraints. If desirable employment opportunities are limited, or are simply perceived to be limited, individuals may believe women’s employment to be a threat to their own jobs and livelihood.

Oil wealth

Recent research argues that oil wealth is the key factor accounting for women’s low labor force participation in MENA, which in turn impacts their ability to gain political representation (Ross, 2008). Nations that have high levels of oil wealth tend to have small agricultural and manufacturing sectors, and large service and construction sectors (Ross, 2008). Agricultural and manufacturing sectors are areas where women tend to have greater employment (Moghadam, 2003). When these sectors are reduced, there is less demand for female labor. The Arab States contribute less than 1 percent of global manufactured exports (Noland and Pack, 2008). While manufacturing is growing in the region, this is mostly driven by the production of refined oil, fertilizer, and aluminum smelting in the Persian Gulf states, which are all industries that provide relatively little employment because their production is highly automated (Noland and Pack, 2008).

Oil wealth also allows for men to earn a family wage, meaning women’s labor force participation may not be as economically essential. This is attributed to higher male wages due to larger construction and service sectors, and to high government transfers to households because of large government revenues on oil (Ross, 2008). Ross (2008) argues that the presence of fewer women in the labor force translates into strong patriarchal norms. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that oil wealth will negatively impact not only women’s workforce participation rates but also individual attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment, thereby creating a culture in which women’s non-participation in the labor force is normative. Thus, higher levels of oil wealth are expected to have a negative impact on attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment.

Women’s economic rights

Women’s economic and employment rights, which may be protected or restricted through national law, are also expected to shape attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. Previous research argues that women’s access to paid employment, which affects their ability to support themselves independently, affects gender relationships (Orloff, 1993). And, a cross-national multilevel study using a scaled-measure of women’s access to power and decision-making (The UN Gender Empowerment Measure) shows that women’s increased access to power at the national level increases support for maternal employment (Yu and Lee, 2013). Here, I hypothesize that in countries where women have greater economic rights, the populace will also be more supportive of women’s equal right to employment.

Unemployment rates

Some argue that unemployment rates are one of the most pertinent economic factors in explaining low levels of labor force participation and the gender gap in the MENA region (Karshenas, 2001; Moghadam, 1998). With unemployment rates of 14.3 percent in 1995 and 13.2 percent in 2005, the MENA region stood out as having the highest unemployment rate of any region in the world (Raphaeli, 2006).

High unemployment rates often disproportionately affect women, either through discrimination or because in some nations they tend to have lower human capital than men (Moghadam, 1998). Moghadam (1998) notes that the percentage of women in Jordan who were not working but wanted to work (i.e. the percentage of women unemployed) was higher than the percentage who were not working by their own choice (i.e. the percentage of women not in the labor force). Unemployment in the MENA region over the past four decades is highest among the highly educated, which Noland and Pack (2008) believe may be attributed to a ‘rational search for jobs that reward effort’ (p. 60). Educated women are particularly hard hit as employment opportunities have shifted from the public to the private sector (Noland and Pack, 2008).

In this article, I hypothesize that national unemployment rates may not just make it more difficult for women to obtain paid employment, but may also affect attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. Although previous research has not specifically investigated the effect of national unemployment rates on gender attitudes, some previous research on attitudes toward immigration cross-nationally demonstrates that the economic situation of the nation (and not just the survey respondent) affects acceptance of immigration (Kehrberg, 2007). A comparative study of attitudes toward women’s employment in Hungary and the United States (based on 1988 data when Hungary had a full employment policy for women) shows that both men and women in the United States were more supportive of women’s employment than their counterparts in Hungary (Panayotova and Brayfield, 1997). While this finding is not directly comparable, it does suggest that there may not be a direct relationship between high national unemployment and low support for women’s right to work. The effect of unemployment on women’s work warrants investigation here.

Political factors affecting attitudes toward women’s employment

Level of democracy

In authoritarian regimes in the MENA region, non-governmental organizations advocating for women’s rights and worker’s rights are commonly completely banned, or face high restrictions (Pratt, 2007). Despite reforms to family law, progress on women’s rights is ‘stymied by the lack of democratic institutions, and independent judiciary, and freedoms of association and assembly’ (Kelly, 2010: 3). Greater levels of democracy are expected to translate into more favorable attitudes toward women’s employment. In a cross-national study, Inglehart and Norris (2003a) discovered a strong association between democracy and support for gender equality. Further research demonstrated that democracy, measured in terms of the level of citizens’ political liberties and civil rights within a nation, is linked to greater support for women in the public sphere, that is, higher education, the labor force, and politics (Price, 2008).

Women in parliament

The share of women in parliament has a number of implications for women’s status. Women’s representation not only reflects the idea that women are legitimate actors in shaping society, there is also evidence that the legislation women politicians support directly impacts women’s lives. Women in parliament advocate for policies such as maternity leave and childcare provision (Kittilson, 2008). This suggests that a greater share of women in parliament will lead to more egalitarian attitudes about women’s right to employment.

Individual socio-demographics

In addition to the context of nations that may make individuals within one society more likely to hold egalitarian gender ideology than those in another, individual socio-demographics also shape attitudes. Research (primarily conducted in Western more developed nations) identifies a number of personal characteristics that affect gender ideology. Theoretical explanations can be broadly categorized into those that focus on how individual interest shapes gender attitudes and those that focus on how exposure shapes gender attitudes (Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Davis and Greenstein, 2009). Interest explanations focus on how individuals work to further their own interests, which are shaped by their ascribed and achieved characteristics (e.g. gender and marital status). Exposure explanations focus on how attitudes are developed through life experiences, such as education and employment. Both explanations have received support. Younger age, single status, employment, and higher educational attainment all contribute to more egalitarian gender attitudes (Banaszak and Plutzer, 1993; Baxter and Kane, 1995; Kroska and Elman, 2009; Price, 2008; Warner, 1991).

Personal religiosity

In addition to individual socio-demographics, personal religiosity also receives much attention in the literature on gender ideology. Numerous studies prove that those who are highly religious tend to hold more traditional gender ideology than those who are less religious or not religious (e.g. Bergh, 2007; Inglehart and Norris, 2003a; Moore and Vanneman, 2003). Thus, it is expected that individuals who express higher levels of personal religiosity will also hold more conservative gender ideology.

Intensity of religious belief within the MENA region

There is also reason to expect that in MENA, intensity of religious belief (as measured by the scale of personal religiosity) may have a unique impact on attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. There is evidence that ‘intensity of religious commitment’ does tend to be associated with more patriarchal attitudes toward men and women’s roles (see Goldscheider et al., 2014). Personal religiosity is associated with less gender-egalitarian attitudes cross-nationally (Seguino, 2010).

Critics may question whether a measure of intensity of religious belief in the Middle East is actually serving as a proxy for Muslim affiliation. However, recent research found that societies that are predominantly Muslim are no more or less likely to be gender inequitable than countries with other predominant religions (Frank et al., 2010; Seguino, 2010). This stands in contrast to older research that argued Islam was uniquely incompatible with gender egalitarianism (see Inglehart and Norris, 2003b). This supports the idea that it is not Islam which may hinder gender-egalitarian attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment in the MENA region, but an intensity of religious belief common in the region.

With modernization and secularization, ‘religion is relegated to a smaller and smaller role among a decreasing number of people and organizations’ (Emerson and Hartman, 2006). In contrast, if individuals in the Middle East are much more likely to take religion very seriously or place an extreme importance on it, this may lead them to also hold more patriarchal attitudes toward women’s employment. I hypothesize that high personal religiosity may particularly deter gender-egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment in MENA societies.

To examine the MENA region in context, I use multilevel modeling across 57 countries, a sample which includes seven MENA nations: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. I turn now to an explanation of the measures and methods used in examining these factors.

Data and methods

Individual survey data come from the fourth (collected between 1999 and 2004) wave of the WVS. The fourth wave was chosen because it has the best coverage of key MENA nations.⁴ The WVS is a worldwide survey that collects individual-level attitudinal data to investigate socio-cultural and political change. The surveys cover countries representing 90 percent of the world’s population in total. Additional measures of national structure are drawn from a variety of sources, as discussed in the measurement section that follows. Operationalizations of all variables are included in Table 3 and descriptive statistics are included in Table 4.

Sample characteristics

As will be discussed in greater depth in the analysis section, hierarchical linear models (HLMs) are used to examine the relative importance of individual and national factors on attitudes toward women’s employment. For these models, all nations in the fourth wave of the WVS with data on attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment, socio-demographics, and contextual variables were selected, for a total sample of 57 nations and 73,860 individuals, including seven MENA nations: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.⁵ A list of all nations in the analyses is in Appendix 1, Table 5. Within all the analyses, listwise deletion was used to eliminate respondents lacking valid responses for any given variable.

Variables and measurement

Dependent variable: attitudes toward women’s rights to employment

I conceptualize egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment as an ideology that women and men should have equal rights to employment; one gender should not be favored over the other in job decisions. Thus, for the dependent variable, the item that was selected as the best indicator (among those available in the WVS) asked respondents to state their level of agreement with ‘When jobs are scarce, men should have more rights to a job than women’, where 1 = agree; 2 = neither agree nor disagree; and 3 = disagree. Figure 1 shows this dependent variable mapped by country, using lighter shades for countries where a higher percentage of individuals disagreed with the above statement, and darker shades for countries where a lower percentage disagreed. In the map, Middle Eastern countries stand out as having the least egalitarian attitudes.

Figure 1.

Attitudinal map (World Values Survey (WVS), 1999–2004).

Regional effect

An indicator variable was used to designate whether individuals reside in a MENA nation versus all other nations available in the sample. Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are the interest group, coded with 1, and all other nations are the referent, coded with 0.

Cultural argument

National religiosity

National level of religiosity was created by calculating the mean on the personal religiosity scale for each nation. This is the overall mean level of personal religiosity on the three-variable scale for each nation. The items included in the scale are ‘How important is God in your life?’ (on a scale of 1–10); ‘How important is religion in your life?’ (on a scale of 1–4); and ‘Do you get comfort and strength from religion?’ (yes/no). See Table 1 for reliability estimates.

Table 1.

Personal religiosity (World Values Survey (WVS), 1999–2004).

Items	Mean	Standard deviation	Range	Factor loadings
		Standard deviation		Pooled data	Country specific
					Highest	Lowest
How important is God in your Life?	7.555	3.119	1–10	0.8929	0.9440	0.4254
Do you get comfort and strength from religion?	0.969	0.173	0–1	0.9173	0.9220	0.6741
How important is religion in your life?	3.053	1.063	1–4	0.8900	0.9029	0.3871
Model fit
Eigenvalue	2.43065				2.53133	1.09318

National demographic factors shaping gender attitudes

Fertility

Total fertility rates were obtained from each country for 1999 from the World Development Indicators (World Bank, n.d.). Rates are well distributed, ranging from a low total fertility rate of 1.13 in Bulgaria and Belarus to highs of 5.49 and 6.21 in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Mean fertility for the full sample is 2.15.

Women’s Tertiary Education Rates and Women’s tertiary gross enrollment rates for 1999 were obtained from the Education Statistics (Edstats) (n.d.).

The economies of the MENA region and attitudes toward women’s employment

Oil wealth

To measure oil rent, I use Michael Ross’ oil rents per capita measure (Ross, 2008). This is the country’s annual rents in oil and gas, standardized by its mid-year population, expressed in US$2000, from 1993 to 2002. Past studies of oil rent measured a country’s oil wealth as oil exports divided by gross domestic product (GDP). However, per capita oil rent ‘is a more precise measure of the value of oil production; and it avoids endogeneity problems that came from measuring exports instead of production, and from using GDP to normalize oil wealth’ (Ross, 2008: 111–112). Of the available nations, in descending order, oil wealth is highest in Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq, Russia, and Iran.

Women’s economic rights

The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset is used to measure women’s economic rights as assured by law in each country. The CIRI dataset evaluates 195 countries in terms of government respect for internationally recognized human rights, and assigns annual scores for each country. Measures of women’s political, economic, and social rights in each country are included in the dataset.⁶ I use the 1999 measure of Women’s Economic Rights. CIRI scores range from 0 to 3. A score of 0 means that there were no rights for women in the law and in some cases the law includes systematic sex discrimination, a score of 1 means that women had some rights that were not adequately enforced, a score of 2 equates with some enforced legal rights for women, and a score of 3 means that women had all or nearly all of the rights listed, and the government ‘fully and vigorously’ enforced these laws (CIRI Short Variable Descriptions). The mean for the sample is 1.42.

Unemployment rates

I examine the effect of men’s unemployment using men’s employment-to-population ratio for each nation. This is the ratio of the total working-age male population that is employed to the total male working-age population of that country. Data on the employment-to-population ratio (expressed as a percentage) for 1999 come from the UN Millennium Development Goals database. The mean is 65.51. Percentages range from a low of 44.7 in Macedonia to a high of 84.5 in Bangladesh.

Political factors affecting attitudes toward women’s employment

Level of democracy

Freedom House’s Index of Democracy was used to measure each country’s level of democracy. Freedom House is a non-governmental organization that conducts annual evaluations of the degree of democratic freedoms in 194 countries and 14 territories. Countries are scored in terms of political rights and civil liberties on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 represents complete freedom and 7 represents low freedom. The scores used are based on evaluations of the countries between 2001 and 2002. The measures of political rights and civil liberties are averaged for each country for an overall score. This measure of democracy is then reverse-coded so that a higher score represents a higher level of democracy.

Women in parliament

The percentage of women in parliament in the lower or single house for 2000 comes from the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s ‘Women in National Parliaments’ dataset. The mean percentage of women in parliament is 13.31. No women are in the national parliament in Saudi Arabia. The largest representation of women in national parliament in this sample is Iceland, with 34.9 percent.

Individual socio-demographics

Personal religiosity

Religiosity is difficult to measure in the MENA region because it is highly skewed; the vast majority of respondents indicate high levels of religiosity. Therefore, to increase the validity of the measure of religiosity, as well as to best capture the existing variation among respondents, I created a three-item scale to measure religiosity. The items included are ‘How important is God in your life?’ (on a scale of 1 to 10, where a higher score indicates greater importance), ‘How important is religion in your life?’ (on a scale of 1 to 4, where 4 equals greater importance), and ‘Do you get comfort and strength from religion?’ (where ‘yes’ is coded as 1 and ‘no’ as 0). Exploratory factor analysis with the pooled data showed that these items align well; all items have factor loading scores above 0.7. Table 1 presents the mean, standard deviation, and factor loadings of the religiosity measure for the pooled data, as well as the country-specific highest and lowest loading scores. The measure of religiosity captures the importance of religion in an individual’s life. As noted previously, it is also a more comprehensive measure of religiosity than that used in previous research to measure intensity of religious belief (see Seguino, 2010). Correlations for all variables are presented in Appendix 1, Table 6.

Analytical strategy

The analysis includes individuals nested within nations, and explanatory variables at both the individual and contextual level. Thus, I use hierarchical modeling to explore the relative effects of both individual characteristics and contextual factors on attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. Hierarchical modeling allows for the examination of variation in attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment both within and between nations, meaning some information can be gained about the relative importance of contextual factors and individual characteristics in predicting individuals’ attitudinal support for women in each of these areas. The dependent variable has ordered response categories ranging from 1 to 3, so I use hierarchical ordinal logit for analysis.

In hierarchical ordinal logit, the coefficients represent the change in log-odds of being in the lowest response category as a result of unit change in the independent variable, after controlling for all other independent variables in the model. This means to discuss the factors that predict support for women’s equal right to employment, the most egalitarian response should correspond to the lowest category of the outcome variable. Again, I reverse-coded the dependent variable so that lower values on the scale are now associated with more egalitarian gender attitudes in each of these areas, as follows: (1) disagree, (2) neither agree nor disagree, (3) agree. A negative coefficient for an independent variable means higher values on that predictor are associated with a reduction in the log-odds of being in the lowest category (disagree).⁷ Table 2 presents coefficients and significance levels, with standard errors in parentheses.

Table 2.

Hierarchical ordinal logit models predicting disagreement with ‘When jobs are scarce, men should have more rights to a job than women’ (World Values Survey (WVS), 1999–2004).

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8
Intercept	0.261	0.368*	0.097	0.060	0.078	0.104	0.102	0.204*
	(0.146)	(0.180)	(0.131)	(0.115)	(0.101)	(0.100)	(0.090)	(0.094)
Threshold 2	0.612^‡	0.644^‡	0.647	0.647^‡	0.647^‡	0.647^‡	0.647^‡	0.648^‡
	(0.040)	(0.042)	(0.043)	(0.043)	(0.043)	(0.043)	(0.043)	(0.043)
Individual
Age		−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡	−0.014^‡
		(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)
Female		0.595^‡	0.597^‡	0.597^‡	0.597^‡	0.597^‡	0.598^‡	0.598^‡
		(0.040)	(0.041)	(0.041)	(0.041)	(0.041)	(0.041)	(0.041)
At least some tertiary education		0.611^‡	0.614^‡	0.614^‡	0.614^‡	0.613^‡	0.614^‡	0.605^‡
		(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.044)
Married		−0.131^‡	−0.132^‡	−0.132^‡	−0.132^‡	−0.132^‡	−0.132^‡	−0.127^‡
		(0.027)	(0.027)	(0.027)	(0.027)	(0.027)	(0.027)	(0.026)
Employed		0.228^‡	0.227^‡	0.227^‡	0.227^‡	0.227^‡	0.227^‡	0.226^‡
		(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)
Personal religiosity		−0.214^‡	−0.212^‡	−0.212^‡	−0.212^‡	−0.212^‡	−0.212^‡	−0.327^‡
		(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.029)
Contextual
MENA			−0.584^‡	−0.486^‡	−0.485^‡	−0.417^‡	−0.370^‡	−0.184*
			(0.115)	(0.116)	(0.114)	(0.103)	(0.099)	(0.110)
Culture
National level of religiosity			−0.435^‡	−0.250*	−0.067	−0.071	0.019	0.008
			(0.139)	(0.112)	(0.107)	(0.099)	(0.110)	(0.110)
Demographic
National fertility rate				0.158
				(0.137)
Women’s tertiary enrollment				0.538^‡	0.409^‡	0.353^‡	0.337^‡	0.338^‡
				(0.099)	(0.090)	(0.092)	(0.077)	(0.076)
Economic
Per capita GDP					0.324^‡	0.233^†	0.133	0.136*
					(0.101)	(0.102)	(0.080)	(0.079)
Oil rent					−0.028
					(0.040)
Women’s economic rights						0.220*	0.117	0.112
						(0.117)	(0.105)	(0.103)
Men’s employment to population ratio						0.011
						(0.096)
Political
Level of democracy							−0.018	−0.018
							(0.107)	(0.106)
Percentage of women in parliament							0.415^‡	0.415^‡
							(0.093)	(0.093)
Personal religiosity × MENA								−0.260^‡
								(0.051)
Tau intercept	1.12947^‡	1.09706^‡	0.64558^‡	0.47736^‡	0.40161^‡	0.38851^‡	0.27032^‡	0.26872^‡

GDP: gross domestic product.

N = 57 nations; 73,860 individuals. Models present coefficients and significance levels with standard errors in parentheses.

p < .05; ^†p < .01; ^‡p < .001 (one-tailed).

I use the previous literature on the factors influencing gender-egalitarian attitudes to specify the models at the individual and contextual levels. In addition, I look for a drop in unexplained variance at the contextual level (as measured by tau intercept) to determine whether subsequent models are better specifications. The null model provides a baseline for comparison, with the tau intercept representing the unexplained variance at the national level when no predictor variables are included at level 1 or 2. Following an accepted method for parsimony in HLM analysis, predictor variables are not included in more complex models if they are not significant (Anderson, 2012). A similar procedure was used in a previous study of gender attitudes to test the explanatory value of highly correlated contextual level indicators (see Yu and Lee, 2013).

Findings

Attitudes toward women’s employment

I use a hierarchical ordinal logit two-level model to examine the individual and contextual factors that influence attitudes toward women’s right to employment in MENA in comparison to all other regions. Results of this analysis are presented in Models 1 through 8 in Table 2. Model 1 is the unconditional (or null) model that includes only the dependent variable and a random intercept. The unconditional model allows for the determination of the proportion of the overall variance that lies between and within nations, and serves as a baseline for subsequent models. The variance component (the tau intercept) in each model represents the unexplained variance in individual attitudes toward women’s employment at the country level. This unconditional model demonstrates that much of the variation in individual attitudes is at the national level (tau intercept = 1.1295, p < .001). This provides statistical support for the importance of including national-level measures in the models explaining individual attitudes.

Individual socio-demographics and religiosity

Model 2 is conditional at level 1, meaning that it introduces predictors at the individual level, specifically, individual socio-demographics and a measure of personal religiosity. As expected and consistent with the literature, those who are older are less supportive of women’s equal right to employment; women are more supportive than men; and those with some post-secondary education are more supportive than their less educated counterparts. All of these effects are large and highly significant. Those who are employed also express significantly more egalitarian attitudes than those who are not, married individuals are less likely than singles to hold egalitarian attitudes, and those who express greater personal religiosity hold less egalitarian attitudes. These effects are all moderate in size and highly significant. Looking to the tau intercept, unexplained variance dropped with the addition of these variables, showing that they explain some of the variation in individual attitudes (tau intercept = 1.0971, in comparison to 1.1295 in the unconditional model). However, it also shows that much of the variation in individual attitudes toward women’s employment remains at the national level.

Regional and cultural effects

In Model 3, I introduce two national-level measures: an indicator variable for residing in the MENA region and a measure of the mean level of personal religiosity held by individuals within that nation. Residing in the Middle East has a strong and highly significant negative effect on individual attitudes toward women’s employment. This shows individuals who live in the Middle East are significantly more likely to hold less egalitarian (or patriarchal) attitudes toward women’s employment.

The mean level of personal religiosity expressed by individuals in a nation also has a negative and highly significant effect, demonstrating that regardless of what religion is predominant in a particular nation, intensity of belief tends to lead to less egalitarian attitudes. This aligns with recent findings showing that after individual religious affiliation and the predominant religion in the country are taken into account, countries with large numbers of religious conservatives tend to have more traditional gender roles (Christensen and Sjørup, 2008), and that higher ‘intensity of belief’ is associated with less gender-egalitarian attitudes (Seguino, 2011). The unexplained variance drops substantially in this model demonstrating that the regional effect and national level of religiosity are important in accounting for cross-national differences in individual gender egalitarianism (tau intercept of 0.6456 in the current model, in comparison to 1.0971 in the previous model which included predictors at only the individual level). However, the highly significant variance component (the tau intercept is significant at the .001 alpha level) shows that there is much remaining variation in attitudes toward women’s employment at the national level.

National factors: demographic

Model 4 adds national demographic factors relevant to women’s status, specifically total fertility rates and women’s tertiary enrollment for each nation. Women’s tertiary enrollment rate has a strong, positive effect on individual attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment. On average, individuals residing in nations in which a higher percentage of the female population is enrolling in tertiary education tend to hold more gender-egalitarian attitudes regarding women’s employment. This is an important finding, as women’s tertiary enrollment has risen markedly in the Middle East in recent decades (Akkair, 2004), suggesting that we may expect more gender-egalitarian attitudes to follow.

This model also shows that the national total fertility rate does not have a significant effect on attitudes. In a search for the most parsimonious model, it is not included in subsequent models. This model also demonstrates that even after tertiary enrollment and fertility rates are accounted for, the effects of residing in MENA and national religiosity remain strong and negative. However, the magnitude of the effect for both variables has dropped substantially with the addition of these national demographic factors. The unexplained variance at the national level is reduced to 0.4774 in this model from 0.6456 in Model 3.

Model 5 drops the insignificant effect of total fertility rate and adds two economic measures: per capita GDP for 1999 and national oil rent in the same year. GDP has a significant positive effect on attitudes toward women’s right to employment. This supports economic development theories of attitudes toward women’s status (see Inglehart and Norris, 2003a). Oil wealth is not significant in this model. (Supplemental analyses show oil wealth is only significant before per capita GDP is taken into account, and for parsimony, oil wealth is not included in subsequent models.) This model also shows that once GDP and oil wealth are accounted for, national level of religiosity is no longer a significant predictor of individual attitudes. The negative effect of residing in the MENA region remains strong and significant, controlling for these economic factors. The effect of women’s tertiary enrollment declines in magnitude from the previous model, but remains a strong and significant predictor. Also, looking to the tau intercept shows that unexplained variance at the country level is reduced to 0.40161 in the current model from 0.4774 in Model 5.

Model 6 drops the highly insignificant effect of oil wealth and adds two more national economic factors: women’s economic rights and men’s employment-to-population ratio. Both of these assess the national employment opportunities available to women. Women’s national economic rights as assured by law have a significant positive effect on attitudes toward their equal rights to employment, even after controlling for relevant regional, cultural, demographic, and economic measures. This demonstrates that institutional factors assuring women equal employment rights have a powerful effect on attitudes. Men’s employment-to-population ratio does not have a significant effect on attitudes toward women’s right to employment. This suggests that higher unemployment rates for men do not significantly reduce support for women’s equal right to employment, at least once relevant structural factors are accounted for. This variable is not included in subsequent analysis. The effects of residing in MENA and of women’s tertiary enrollment both drop in the current model, yet both still remain highly significant. The total variance at the national level continues to drop with this model specification (tau intercept = 0.3885).

Model 7 introduces two measures of the political environment: the national level of democracy and the percentage of women in parliament. The percentage of women in parliament has a strong and significant positive effect on attitudes toward women’s employment. Women in parliament not only demonstrate a more gender-equitable division of power and decision-making to the populace; they also tend to work for feminist causes (see Kittilson, 2008). Both of these effects likely contribute to more egalitarian attitudes among individuals.

However, the effect of national democracy is not significant, in contrast to previous work highlighting the importance of democracy on gender-egalitarian attitudes (Inglehart and Norris, 2003a; Price, 2008). This may be because other relevant regional, cultural, demographic, economic, and political variables have already been taken into account. The effect of living in MENA again dropped in size once political environment was taken into account, but continues to have a significant negative effect on individual attitudes. Women’s tertiary enrollment continues to have a strong significant positive effect. Per capita GDP and women’s economic rights are no longer significant in this model. The unexplained variance at the national level is the lowest in this model of any of the seven (tau intercept = 0.2703).

Finally, Model 8 adds the hypothesized cross-level interaction between personal religiosity and residing in MENA. Controlling for individual socio-demographics, the individual effects of residing in MENA and national religiosity, and relevant national demographic, economic, and political factors, the interaction has a strong and highly significant negative effect on attitudes toward women’s employment. Specifically, individuals who express high levels of personal religiosity and reside in MENA are particularly unlikely to disagree with the idea that men should have more rights to a job than women. This finding aligns with previous work (see Frank et al., 2010) that found a negative regional effect for the MENA region in the adoption of gender-egalitarian policies. High personal religiosity may be particularly incompatible with gender-egalitarian attitudes in this environment. Including the interaction term also greatly reduces the size and significance of the main effect of residing in MENA.

The final model shows that it was impossible to fully explain away the effect of residing in the Middle East on individual attitudes toward women’s employment, but accounting for relevant factors did greatly reduce the significance and size of the effect. Unlike previous studies that argued that culture is key in understanding low levels of gender egalitarianism and women’s rights in the Middle East (see Inglehart and Norris, 2003b), I find that a number of factors combine to explain less egalitarian attitudes toward the region. Looking at the fully specified model as a whole shows that young, educated, employed, single women are the most supportive of women’s equal right to a job, especially when they reside in countries outside the MENA region where women have high rates of tertiary enrollment and greater economic rights as assured by law, and where women make up greater percentages of parliament. Those residing outside MENA and expressing less personal religiosity express the most egalitarian views. The unexplained variance in this model is slightly lower than in the previous (tau intercept = 0.2687 in Model 8, in comparison to 0.27032 in Model 7).

Discussion and conclusion

This study sought to determine whether individuals in the Middle East hold significantly less egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment than those in other regions in the world, and if so, what factors explain this effect. Attitudes toward women’s employment have concrete consequences on their labor market participation, and women’s labor force participation in the Middle East is lower than in any other world region. Understanding the individual and structural factors that shape people’s attitudes toward women’s equal right to employment in the Middle East is key to understanding their low employment rates, and women’ social status in the region more broadly.

Findings show that individuals in the Middle East do hold significantly less egalitarian (or more patriarchal) attitudes toward women’s employment than do individuals in any other world region. This finding at first appears to be in line with theories of ‘Middle East exceptionalism’ in terms of gender attitudes. However, it is important to note that arguments for a ‘true clash of civilizations’ on gender attitudes always focus on a divide between Muslim and Western societies (see Inglehart and Norris, 2003b). This study finds a regional, rather than a religious, effect. Individuals in the Middle East do stand out as holding less egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment, but this difference can be explained by a number of demographic, economic, and political factors converging to shape attitudes in the region, rather than by an over-arching cultural explanation.

While this study does find religiosity to have a negative impact on gender-egalitarian attitudes toward women’s work, the effect stems from high intensity of religious belief among individuals that is predominant in the MENA region (sometimes described as religious fundamentalism, a term which is not consistently defined in the literature). I find that national levels of religiosity have no significance on gender egalitarianism, once other relevant factors are taken into account. This means that findings from this study are more in line with recent research that finds that MENA has more conservative gender policies than any other world region (Frank et al., 2010). The theory is that policies in the region were shaped by a number of factors, including present political and economic structures as well as histories of colonialism. These findings are also in line with work that has shown that intensity of religious belief is most important in explaining patriarchal gender attitudes, not religious tradition (Seguino, 2011).

The empirical findings of this study provide support for a multi-dimensional theory of women’s empowerment in the Middle East that takes into account demographic changes and the economic structure to understand women’s status in the MENA region (Haghighat, 2013). The present study shows that the ‘Middle East effect’ (meaning the negative regional effect on attitudes toward women’s employment) can be substantially reduced by accounting for a combination of national and individual factors pertinent to the region. Demographic, economic, and political factors all contribute to explaining the regional effect. In fact, once these factors are entered into the HLMs, the effect of residing in the Middle East is reduced remarkably in both effect size and significance. This demonstrates that there is not one key factor that explains Middle East ‘exceptionalism’ in gender attitudes.

A recent debate in the literature on women’s employment in the Middle East has been over whether Islam or oil is the culprit in explaining women’s low employment in the region (see Charrad, 2009; Ross, 2008). I find that when it comes to attitudes toward women’s work in the Middle East, it is not Islam or oil that is the barrier, but a combination of factors converging in the region that discourages more gender-equitable ideology on women’s right to employment.

I find that women’s tertiary enrollment and the percentage of women in parliament are very important in explaining attitudes toward women’s employment in the Middle East. Both of these have large effect sizes and are highly significant throughout the models. Patriarchal ideas in the Middle East are expected to erode as women’s educational attainment increases (Moghadam, 2005). Averaging across the MENA region, literacy is 20 percent lower among women than men (Akkair, 2004). But this disparity is expected to rapidly decrease because girls’ and women’s enrollment at all levels of education has increased dramatically in the Middle East in recent decades. As increasing numbers of women are enrolled at all levels of education, women’s improved literacy rates may lead to more egalitarian attitudes toward women’s employment, and increases in their proportion of the workforce.

It is important to note that this study is an examination of net effects shaping attitudes, and that some of the effects of contextual variables may be manifest through the presence of others. For instance, research shows that countries with higher national incomes are more likely to transition to democracy and that democracies are more likely to be viable in these societies. Democratic countries tend to have higher percentages of women in parliament, which leads to more egalitarian attitudes toward women in the workforce. Thus, net effects may reflect temporally prior mechanisms.

Overall economic development (as represented by GDP) is the most important economic factor in explaining attitudes toward women’s right to employment. Individuals residing in wealthier nations are more likely to support women’s right to employment than individuals in less developed nations. In contrast to hypotheses, oil wealth and tightness of the labor market (as represented by men’s employment-to-population ratio) are not significant predictors of attitudes toward women’s employment once relevant individual factors and national culture and demographics are taken into account.

In discussing the implications of this study, it is also important to note its limitations. The sample used in the hierarchical analyses would ideally be representative of the globe. Instead, Europe (both Eastern and Western) is overrepresented and East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are both underrepresented. This means that the sample has more democracies, wealthier nations, and lower religiosity than would be expected with a representative global sample. However, the fact that more secular nations are overrepresented in this study suggests that the effect of national religiosity may be stronger with a more representative sample. In addition, it does not appear that sample size is producing the non-significant effect of oil wealth. This sample does not include three of the countries Ross (2008) mentions as nations with relatively high oil wealth and high representation of women in the workforce and in parliament (Norway, New Zealand, and Australia). However, the addition of these countries would be expected to reduce the already insignificant effect of oil wealth on attitudes toward women’s employment, suggesting that their inclusion would not impact the direction or significance of the results.

However, one limitation of this study may be the narrow way in which rentier status is defined, equating it with oil rent. Recent research suggests defining a rentier state as one in which one-third or more of the economy is made up of revenues from rents extracted from international transactions (Jenkins et al., 2011). In this way, a rentier state is not just one where a large share of its GDP comes from mineral/oil exports (as in the traditional definition) but also foreign military and economic aid, worker remittances, and international tourism. As defined by Jenkins et al. (2011), 18 out of 22 MENA countries are rentier states. Future research should examine how this broader definition explains attitudes toward gender equality, as data allow.

Future studies of the factors shaping gender egalitarianism and women’s employment in the Middle East should also explore the effect of the large percentage of migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Foreign born workers make up 70 percent of the labor force in GCC countries, which means women compete within a very tight labor market. These migrants are not included in the WVS country samples, but their presence may affect individual attitudes toward women’s right to employment.

The items available to measure religiosity in the WVS are also limited. It is not possible to differentiate high personal religiosity from religious orthodoxy with the items available. As mentioned in the descriptions of the individual variables, the religiosity index is composed of responses to three items: the importance of God on a 10-point scale, the importance of religion on a 10-point scale, and a dichotomous indicator asking whether the respondent gets comfort and strength from religion. While this scale assesses whether an individual has high or low personal religiosity, it cannot capture individual adherence to religious tenets that prescribe specific gender roles. Fundamentalists in the United States (and other countries) ‘tend to oppose modern, modified gender roles wherein women have entered the paid workforce’ (Moore and Vanneman, 2003: 116). Ideally, measures of religiosity would differentiate intensity of belief from religious orthodoxy.

Also, the item in the religiosity scale that asks individuals to report on the importance of God in their lives may not operate well in certain countries, particularly those that are predominantly Buddhist. Four of the countries in my sample have significant Buddhist minorities: Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam. However, exploratory factor analysis with the pooled data showed that these items align well; all items have factor loading scores above 0.7.

Data limitations also preclude this study from examining all 19 MENA nations. However, this study does include an economically diverse selection of MENA countries, both Arab and non-Arab countries, and countries that are very diverse in terms of the dependent variable, support for women’s equal right to employment. In addition, as noted above, it includes the region’s five most populous countries, containing three quarters of the region’s total population.

In sum, sample limitations do not suggest that any of the findings would be altered with a more globally representative sample.

Opportunities

Future research should continue to examine the effect of an intensity of religious belief on attitudes and behaviors. Some equate such religious intensity with fundamentalism, although such crude measures are criticized by others who claim that fundamentalism best describes those who view their own religion as superior to others, interpret scripture literally, and/or who desire a religious orientation to government. However, regardless of whether intensity of belief actually measures fundamentalism, it is clear that placing a high importance on religion is associated with more patriarchal gender ideology. Future research should explore whether it is also associated with less tolerance in other areas. Also, researchers should be cognizant of the important distinction between religious affiliation and intensity of religious belief in shaping attitudes. This research demonstrates that it is high personal religiosity that is associated with intolerance, not Islam. This is an important finding to consider in future studies of the anti-Muslim sentiment, arising from the fear of terrorism, that has increased in prevalence in the United States since 9/11 (see Steele et al., 2014). Findings of this study do not support those who may base anti-Islamist sentiment on the idea that Muslims are less gender egalitarian. The findings of this research suggest several avenues for change in attitudes toward women’s right to employment in the MENA region. Women’s tertiary enrollment has been rapidly increasing in the MENA region, and women’s representation in higher education is an important factor countering less egalitarian attitudes in the region. As more of these highly educated women graduate, their own attitudes regarding women’s employment, and the attitudes of those they come in contact with, may change. Just as women’s higher education (and support for it) grew globally over the last half-century (Schofer and Meyer, 2005), a critical mass of highly educated women in the MENA region may lead to an attitudinal shift.

Women’s increasing education may also allow more women to achieve positions of political power. Multiple studies found that a large portion of the cross-national variation in women’s political representation can be explained by the number of women college graduates. When women make up a substantial proportion of parliament, this leads to more policies that benefit women and children (see Reynolds, 1999). Women’s tertiary enrollment has increased dramatically, and future analyses using multiple waves of the WVS could examine how women’s increased education has impacted attitudes about their right to employment.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Table 6.

Correlations of all variables included in hierarchical linear analysis (World Values Survey (WVS), 1999–2004).

	DV:Wom.Employ	Female	Age	Employed	Married	Educ.	Religiosity	MiddleEast	Nat.Relig.	Fertility	WomenPar.	WomLegalRights	EmployPop	Democracy	FemaleTert.	Oil	GDP
DV:Wom.Employ	1.0000
Female	0.1122	1.0000
Age	−0.0172	0.0120	1.0000
Employed	0.0817	−0.2470	−0.1769	1.0000
Married	−0.1002	−0.0274	0.2562	0.0804	1.0000
Educ	0.1159	−0.0458	−0.0785	0.1416	−0.0378	1.0000
Religiosity	−0.2908	0.1038	−0.0263	−0.1186	0.0707	−0.0684	1.0000
MiddleEast	−0.3661	−0.0304	−0.1661	−0.0383	0.0512	−0.0285	0.3764	1.0000
Nat.Relig	−0.3535	−0.0318	−0.2536	−0.0346	0.0243	−0.0140	0.6411	0.5817	1.0000
Fertility	−0.2341	−0.0407	−0.2212	−0.0198	−0.0097	0.0099	0.3874	0.2994	0.6110	1.0000
WomenPar.	0.3406	0.0157	0.1553	0.0221	−0.0664	−0.0244	−0.3326	−0.5172	−0.5174	−0.2016	1.0000
WomLeg.Rights	0.3439	0.0230	0.1335	0.0314	−0.0502	0.0064	−0.3251	−0.5067	−0.5079	−0.4261	0.5557	1.0000
EmployPop	−0.1245	−0.0322	−0.1379	0.0305	0.0385	0.0291	0.1966	0.1678	0.3160	0.2827	−0.1758	−0.1247	1.0000
Democracy	0.3596	0.0259	0.2019	0.0529	−0.0532	0.0197	−0.3749	−0.6811	−0.5911	−0.4439	0.6224	0.6623	−0.2332	1.0000
FemaleTertiary	0.3583	0.0524	0.2112	0.0622	−0.0679	0.0792	−0.4091	−0.4892	−0.6446	−0.5958	0.4267	0.4979	−0.2743	0.5809	1.0000
Oil	−0.1139	−0.0029	−0.0754	−0.0066	−0.0126	0.0424	0.1401	0.3346	0.2156	0.2575	−0.2050	−0.3771	0.1740	−0.3678	−0.0533	1.0000
GDP	0.2917	0.0182	0.1358	0.0720	−0.0589	0.0480	−0.3475	−0.3351	−0.5361	−0.3345	0.5219	0.5694	−0.0038	0.5940	0.5253	−0.0385	1.0000

GDP: gross domestic product.

N = 57 nations; 73,860 individuals.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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