Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse and explain the high rates of employability of one group of Middle East youth by focussing on liberal arts and soft skills education as an integral part of quality higher education. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs the survey research method using questionnaires, focus groups and interviews to understand the labour market dynamics in Lebanon and explore factors that correlate positively with gainful employment with a special focus on the graduates of an institution that emphasises the liberal arts and soft skills training. Findings The paper finds that quality higher education – particularly with a focus on soft skills and internships – boosts the potential of graduates to secure their first jobs after graduation. Research limitations/implications Reliable data on higher education, employability and youth are scarce in Lebanon and the region. The paper is based on one labour market study in Lebanon while seeking to extrapolate to Lebanese youth as a whole as well as reflect on employability and youth in the Middle East region. Practical implications The paper demonstrates support for improving quality in higher education as well as making soft skills training and the liberal arts critical components for increased employability of youth in Lebanon and the Middle East. Originality/value The paper is innovative in its reliance on primary data from a labour market survey as such data are scarce in Lebanon. In addition, advocacy for soft skills training and the liberal arts in the midst of focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics and other professional education at the university level is rare in the Middle East.

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have devoted much of their careers to looking at women and socialism and women and postsocialism. In particular, each has written some of the most important work looking at reproduction and politics-an intersection that too often has been overlooked by academics and professionals in both the East and West. In Reproducing Gender and The Politics of Gender, their most ambitious projects to date, Gal and Kligman have produced an edited volume of articles that analyzes the complex relationships between ideas and practices of gender and political change and, following this, a coauthored and more theoretical work that synthesizes and expands on the findings and discourses of the edited volume. As will be discussed in greater detail below, both works significantly add to the knowledge and understanding of the intersections of gender and the dynamic changes (and continuities) of post-1989 East Central Europe.This review looks at both works because they are directly connected, offering complementary insight and knowledge into the 336Review of Gal and Kligman's Reproducing Gender and The Politics of Gender after Socialism