Attitudes towards gender equality and perception of democracy in the Arab world

Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between support of democracy and attitudes to human rights, in particular, support for gender equality, in the countries covered by the first wave of the Arab Barometer project. We use cluster analysis and negative binomial regression modelling to show that, unlike in most countries of the world, correlation between support of democracy and gender equality is very low in the Arab countries. There is a group of people in the region who support both democracy and gender equality, but they are a small group (about 17% of the population) of elderly and middle-aged people characterized by higher education and social status. A substantial number of poorly educated males express support for democracy but not for gender equality. Many people, especially young males aged 25 -35 in 2007, are against both gender equality and democracy. Younger people tend to be both better educated and more conservative, those belonging to the 25 -34 age group being the most patriarchal in their gender attitudes. Yet, controlling for age, education does have a positive effect on gender equality attitudes. Nevertheless, this phenomenon may reflect two simultaneous processes going on in the Middle East. On the one hand, people are getting more educated, urbanized, etc., which means the continuation of modernization. On the other hand, the fact that older people are the most liberal age group may point to a certain retrogression of social values in the younger generations.

Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

“…We operationalize support for gender equality using three widely used items on gender equality in the public sphere in particular. The three items asked respondents to which extent they agreed with the statements: “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do” (four-point scale), “A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl” (four-point scale), and “When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women” (three-point scale) (e.g., Blaydes and Linzer 2008 ; Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, and Ponarin 2016 ; Price 2016 ; Spierings 2014 ). Factor analyses showed that these items tap into the same underlying factor overall and in 16 of 17 surveys separately, 4 indicating measurement equivalency ( Van de Vijver and Leung 1997 ).…”

Unintended Consequences of Gender Equality Promotion in Swedish Multicultural Contraceptive Counseling: A Discourse Analysis

“…Together with the other Scandinavian citizenship regimes, Sweden is often described as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world (Thun, 2015; World Economic Forum, 2015; World Values Survey, 2016), where people usually give high priority to, for instance, shared parental leave, generous day-care opportunities for children, and women’s participation in the labor market and political life (Månsdotter & Deogan, 2016; World Values Survey, 2016). In contrast, increased migration to Sweden from non-Western countries where people, on average, express less support for gender equality between women and men (Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, & Ponarin, 2016; Statistics Sweden, 2015; World Values Survey, 2016) has raised renewed attention to how gender equality aspects are being dealt with within multicultural welfare institutions (see Månsdotter & Deogan, 2016; Thun, 2015). Of interest for empirical exploration in this article is how the “high-profiled ideal of gender equality” (Langvasbråten, 2008, p. 33) takes shape in the provision of reproductive health care in culturally diverse localities in Sweden, with contraceptive counseling as specific field of exploration.…”

“…In contrast, increased migration to Sweden from non-Western countries where people, on average, express less support for gender equality between women and men (Kostenko, Kuzmuchev, & Ponarin, 2016;Statistics Sweden, 2015;World Values Survey, 2016) has raised renewed attention to how gender equality aspects are being dealt with within multicultural welfare institutions (see Månsdotter & Deogan, 2016;Thun, 2015). Of interest for empirical exploration in this article is how the "high-profiled ideal of gender equality" (Langvasbråten, 2008, p. 33) takes shape in the provision of reproductive health care in culturally diverse localities in Sweden, with contraceptive counseling as specific field of exploration.…”

Women's political participation and intrahousehold empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring

“…Note that there is a great diversity of norms even within conservative regions of Upper Egypt(Ibrahim and Wassef, 2001). Several studies explain that concerns for democracy and gender equity are relatively uncorrelated from one another(Kostenko et al, 2016). However, it is true that there is a correlation between protest intensity and other dimensions, notably due to the fact that events mainly took place in urban areas -hence the high correlation with the proportion of urban households (.78) and, subsequently, a positive correlation with education levels (.44) and a negative correlation with family size (−.43).…”