Gender Equality Support in the Arab World Revisited

Gender Equality Support in the Arab World
Revisited.
Veronica Kostenko, Eduard Ponarin, Musa Shteiwi, Olga
Strebkova
Laboratory for Comparative Social Research. Higher School of Economics, Russia;
Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan
August, 24, 2016

Research Question
Do Arab countries follow the global trend of
liberalization in gender issues or do they become
more conservative and traditional?
Veronica Kostenko, Eduard Ponarin, Musa Shteiwi, Olga Strebkova August, 24, 2016 2 / 25

100 years of beauty. Egypt 1950s

100 years of beauty. Egypt 1980s

Theoretical Framework
∙ Revised modernization theory (Inglehart, Baker, Welzel)
∙ Impressionable years theory (Newcomb, Alwin)
∙ Gender equality research (Norris, Jamal, Moghadam)
∙ Studies of nationalism (Smith, Gellner, Greenfeld)

The main findings from applied research
on modernization theory regarding gender equality
∙ Age (young) and education (higher) have the strongest positive effects
for gender egalitarianism. Females are more egalitarian than males
(Inglehart & Norris, 2003).
∙ Urban dwellers are more likely to support egalitarian practices, while in
rural settings people tend to remain more conservative.
∙ Degree of religiosity is a stronger predictor of gender inequality support
than denomination (Van Tubergen, 2009).
∙ Islam has a moderate but robust anti-egalitarian effect on gender issues
(Alexander &Welzel, 2011).
∙ Countries differ significantly in their support of gender equality.
Within-country variation dwarves in comparison to cross-country
differences (Welzel, 2013).
∙ Cohort differences in gender equality attitudes are smaller in industrial
and agrarian (including Muslim) countries than in post-industrial
countries, reflecting the pace of social change (Inglehart & Welzel, 2010).

Why Is Gender
Egalitarianism Advancing Slower in the Arab World?
1. Institutional Explanation
∙ Labor force participation (Spierings; Yaganeh & May)
∙ "Oil curse"discourse (Ross)
2. Cultural explanation
∙ There are patriarchal cultures, such as Muslim, that are not
likely to change towards the Western way of life (Huntington),
or are in clash with modernity (Lewis).
∙ The Muslim cultural heritage is one of the strongest barriers
for the rising tide of gender equality (Inglehart & Norris).
∙ Higher religiosity of Muslims is the reason of patriarchal
dominance (Kandiyoti, Hassan).

Feminist critique
∙ Orientalist approach lumps together very different societies as
the "East"as opposed to a mythic "West"(Said, Ahmed).
∙ Ignores Arab women as actors who actually change the social
and political agenda, receive higher education, and get
positions in business and government (Moghadam).
∙ Paternalist attitude to Muslim women, discourse of
"saving"them from their own culture, norms, and men
(Abu-Lughod).
∙ Little attention to the role of women and the Arab feminism in
the Arab Spring events (Bellin, Al-Ali).

Our explanation of the "Conservative turn"
∙ Official discourse on gender issues is influenced by larger
processes of identification in post-colonial world.
∙ Nationalism (in some countries backed by the Soviet Union)
was popular in the 1950s-1960s and promoted female rights.
∙ By 1970s-1980s Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have
accumulated oil revenues and promoted an alternative way of
development, a return to the "pure Islam".
∙ Disappointment in the nationalist version of modernization
strengthened the acceptance of religious identification by many
young people, which affected women’s rights.

Hypotheses
1. We expect more gender egalitarianism in older cohorts
(compared to their younger compatriots) for the countries that
promoted nationalism back in 1950-s - 1960-s.
2. For countries that buttress and sponsor religious
traditionalism, we anticipate lower levels and almost no
inter-generational shift in gender equality support.
3. Education and religiosity level are supposed to affect gender
attitudes as predicted by the modernization theory (more
religious and less educated people are more patriarchal).

Data and Methods I
∙ 3 waves of the Arab Barometer project
∙ Sample: 5 repeating countries (Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon,
Palestine, Yemen) + Saudi Arabia (from wave 2).
∙ Generalized Additive Modeling (GAM) framework to estimate
cohort effect on gender equality index (Hastie, 1990). GAM
describes non-linear relations between variables that are poorly
approximated by the parametric functions (uses smoothers and
splines instead).
∙ Multiple imputation using Amelia II package in R (we impute
2718 missings of 17096 sample)

Data and Methods II:
Countries sampled in the three waves
Wave I Wave II Wave III
Lebanon Lebanon Lebanon
Jordan Jordan Jordan
Algeria Algeria Algeria
Palestine Palestine Palestine
Yemen Yemen Yemen
Morocco Morocco
Kuwait Kuwait
Tunisia Tunisia
Iraq Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Egypt Egypt
Sudan Sudan
Libya

Countries covered by Arab Barometer
ALGERIA
MOROCCO
BAHRAIN

Dependent Variable - Gender Equality Index
Wave I Wave II Wave III
A married woman can work
outside the home if she wishes
outside the home
outside the home
On the whole, men make better
political leaders than women
do (reverse)
In general, men are better
at political leadership than
women (reverse)
In general, men are better
at political leadership than
women (reverse)
A university education is more
important for a boy than a girl
(reverse)
University education for
males is more important
than university education for
females (reverse)
University education for
males is more important
than university education for
females (reverse)
A woman can be a president
or prime minister of a Muslim
country
A woman can be a president
or prime minister of a Muslim
country
A woman can travel abroad by
herself if she wishes
It is permissible for a woman to
travel abroad by herself
Men and women should have
equal job opportunities
Men and women should have
equal work opportunities
Men and women should receive
equal wages and salaries

Changes in gender
attitudes across 3 waves by country (3-item index)

Findings from descriptive statistics
∙ Gender egalitarianism is growing steadily in all the countries
sampled.
∙ Egypt used to be the most conservative gender-wise by the
2nd wave, but now it’s Yemen.
∙ Lebanon remains the most supportive of gender equality.
∙ Algeria and Egypt show the greatest (positive) change in
gender egalitarianism in the recent years, the slowest growth is
in Iraq and Morocco.

Changes in gender attitudes of
people belonging to the same cohorts in 5 countries

GAM models.
DV - Gender egalitarianism. 5 countries, waves 1-3
1930 1950 1970 1990
−0.40.00.40.8
Year Born
Yemen
Year Born
s(GEIndex,DF=4)
1st wave
2nd wave
3rd wave
1930 1950 1970 1990
−0.40.00.40.8
Year Born
Palestine
Year Born
s(GEIndex,DF=4)
1st wave
2nd wave
3rd wave
1930 1950 1970 1990
−0.40.00.40.8
Year Born
Algeria
Year Born
s(GEIndex,DF=4)
1st wave
2nd wave
3rd wave
1930 1950 1970 1990
−0.40.00.40.8
Year Born
Lebanon
Year Born
s(GEIndex,DF=4)
1st wave
2nd wave
3rd wave
1930 1950 1970 1990
−0.40.00.40.8
Year Born
Jordan
Year Born
s(GEIndex,DF=4)
1st wave
2nd wave
3rd wave

Parametric
effects of GAM (5 countries across 5 waves)
Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3
Jordan −0.066 (0.046) 0.012 (0.017) 0.061***
(0.010)
Palestine −0.059 (0.046) 0.056***
(0.017) 0.081***
(0.013)
Algeria −0.021 (0.046) 0.065***
(0.017) 0.127***
(0.012)
Lebanon 0.087*
(0.046) 0.187***
(0.016) 0.220***
(0.011)
Yemen baseline
Gender (male) −0.104***
(0.005) −0.110***
(0.005) −0.109***
(0.005)
Education
Illiterate baseline
Elementary 0.032**
(0.014) 0.027**
(0.013) 0.003 (0.011)
Primary 0.055***
(0.014) 0.047***
(0.013) 0.016 (0.010)
Secondary 0.084***
(0.014) 0.062***
(0.013) 0.033***
(0.011)
2-year college 0.110***
(0.015) 0.075***
(0.014) 0.038***
(0.012)
BA+MA 0.137***
(0.014) 0.093***
(0.013) 0.082***
(0.011)
Reading Quran
Every day baseline
Sometimes 0.009 (0.006) 0.022***
(0.007) 0.007 (0.006)
Rare/Never 0.040***
(0.007) 0.028***
(0.006) 0.001 (0.008)
Observations 5,088 5,788 6,220
Adjusted R2
0.228 0.199 0.210
Log Likelihood 1,398.366 1,204.356 1,189.175
UBRE 0.034 0.039 0.040
Note: *
p<0.1; **
p<0.05; ***
p<0.01

GAM models. DV - Gender egalitarianism. Wave 3
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Yemen
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Morocco
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Palestine
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Egypt
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Saudi Arabia
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Tunisia
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Jordan
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Lebanon
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Libya
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Sudan
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Kuwait
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Iraq
1940 1960 1980
−0.4−0.20.00.20.4
Year Born
s(GEIndex,df=4)
Algeria

(Yemen united) (Yemen North and South)
Algeria 0.087***
(0.011) 0.104***
(0.025)
Egypt 0.036***
(0.013) 0.029 (0.026)
Iraq −0.006(0.013) −0.023 (0.030)
Jordan 0.020**
(0.009) 0.017 (0.021)
Lebanon 0.179***
(0.009) 0.162***
(0.022)
Libya 0.011(0.011) 0.012(0.023)
Morocco 0.047***
(0.015) 0.094***
(0.029)
Palestine 0.041***
(0.012) 0.051**
(0.022)
Sudan −0.013(0.013) −0.027 (0.028)
Tunisia 0.107***
(0.009) 0.092***
(0.022)
Saudi Arabia 0.058***
(0.018) 0.146***
(0.047)
Yemen −0.034**
(0.015)
North Yemen −0.049 (0.036)
South Yemen −0.036 (0.098)
Kuwait baseline
Gender (Male) −0.114***
(0.003) −0.115***
(0.003)
Education
Illiterate baseline
Elementary 0.006 (0.007) 0.008 (0.007)
Primary 0.015**
(0.007) 0.018***
(0.007)
Secondary 0.041***
(0.007) 0.044***
(0.007)
2-year college 0.057***
(0.007) 0.059***
(0.007)
BA or MA 0.079***
(0.007) 0.081***
(0.007)
Reading Quran
Rare/No 0.015***
(0.006) 0.017***
(0.006)
Sometimes 0.00004 (0.004) 0.0005(0.004)
Every day baseline
Adjusted R2
0.154 0.159
Log Likelihood 2,608.259 2,640.709
UBRE 0.041 0.041
Note: *
p<0.1; **
p<0.05; ***
p < 0.01

GAM models. DV - Gender egalitarianism

Results
1 - Modernization trends in gender egalitarianism
∙ There is evidence of growing support for gender equality in all
the Arab countries across all generations (without controls).
∙ When controlling for education, gender, urban or rural setting,
and religiosity, the growth of gender egalitarianism becomes
subtle, and in many cases vanishes.
∙ In some countries, like Yemen and Algeria, older people show
more egalitarian attitudes then their younger compatriots.

Results 2 - Yemen and Saudi Arabia
∙ South Yemeni (socialist) start from more egalitarian attitudes
in generations born before 1950-s and end up with very
conservative mores among youth.
∙ North Yemeni born before 1950-s express very conservative
gender attitudes, but generations born after 1970-s express
slightly more support for egalitarianism then their southern
counterparts.
∙ In Saudi Arabia there is a modest growth of support for
egalitarianism in the youngest cohorts (resembling North
Yemen).

Thanks for your attention

Gender Equality Support in the Arab World Revisited

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