The World Economic Forum published a new essay today, written by the Executive Director for The Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, Dalia Mogahed. Mogahed explores the factors shaping women's economic empowerment in the Middle East and recommends that policymakers should increase women's economic contributions by focusing on elevating their country's human development as a whole, rather than focusing on gender-specific programs or secularization of social norms.
Here are some key findings from the essay:
- Arab women want religion and equal rights: While religious discourse has long been exploited to deny women's rights, women seem to reject attempts to pit their faith against their empowerment. The majority of women and men across countries experiencing political upheaval do want some level of religious influence in law, though people's views of the specific role for Sharia vary widely from one country to another.
- Women want to be active and empowered: Roughly nine in 10 women in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen agree that women should be able to work in any job for which they are qualified. And it is here where we find the greatest gender gap. Though majorities of men agree women should have the right to work at any job for which they are qualified, their support lags that of women by double digits in many countries.
- Economic troubles, not religion, may negatively affect women's rights: Gallup analysts found that across the Arab world, men's support for women's equal legal status and right to hold any job they are qualified for was positively linked to their level of life satisfaction, employment, and other measures of economic and social development -- such as education and national score on the Human Development Index, not support for Sharia. This suggests that, in principle, economic trouble is a greater threat to women's rights than public support for religious legislation.
- To empower women, focus on human development: Women's empowerment must be seen as part of a holistic approach that elevates society as a whole, and therefore must also include men. According to Gallup surveys, women's problems and priorities across the region are not gender specific, but reflect their nation's challenges: unemployment, instability, and poor education systems.
Read the complete essay. The Gallup research she references will appear in the upcoming report "After the Arab Uprisings: Women on Rights, Religion, and Rebuilding," which will be available June 25, 2012, at muslimstudies.gallup.com.
Watch Dalia Mogahed's TED Talk, where she shares surprising data on Egyptian people's attitudes and hopes before the Arab Spring -- with a special focus on the role of women in sparking change.