The current study examined employment rates and predictors of employment among Syrian refugees currently living in Lebanon and Jordan. This paper argues that men and women refugees have different experiences seeking out employment after resettlement due to patriarchal structures and attitudes toward women that are present in the Arab Middle East. The goals of this paper were a) to examine…
Gender Issues
Gender Dynamic: Examining Public Opinion Data in Light of Covid-19 Crisis
Summary: The under-representation of female leadership in the Covid-19 responses hurts girls and women in the Arab world who are uniquely impacted by this humanitarian crisis. Citizens’ bias plays a role in the lack of women occupying high-rank political leadership positions. And, especially during times of crisis, citizens want to see a leader that they can trust to take charge…
PEER REVIEW: Arab Barometer
The Arab Barometer is a nonpartisan research network, hosted at Princeton University, which provides insight into the social, political, and economic attitudes and values of people across the Arab world. They have been conducting high quality and reliable public opinion surveys in the MENA region since 2006 and make the data publicly available (free of charge) on their website. The Arab Barometer is currently updating…
Women in the Middle East North African region pushing back against patriarchy
The world celebrated International Women’s Day on Sunday March 8. But such symbolic days seem to have little effect on the actual status of women in the world, as a recent United Nations report notes. Despite strides towards greater gender equality, the world body notes there is not a single country that has achieved gender equality. Moreover, 90% of men…
Why do Arabs dream of leaving their homelands?
High unemployment rates, oppressive regimes and a desire for better education are some of the reasons cited by Arabs who express a desire to leave their countries. The Arab world has seen a lot of its youth move in search of better opportunities for employment, freedom of expression, in addition to escaping from social and cultural norms they find oppressive….
Celebrating Arab women’s rights
Women’s yearning for fairness and equality has the support of overwhelming majorities in the Arab world. This year, as it is the case every year, the world marks International Women’s Day on March 8. The commemoration is usually an occasion for celebration of the milestones achieved. In the Arab world, there have been quite a few such recent milestones that…
Women’s Agency & Economic Mobility in MENA: Examining Patterns & Implications
Key Findings: Opinions regarding women’s rights and their roles in society are progressing unevenly in MENA. While citizens of Arab countries are more approving of women’s right to education, work and holding political office, there is far from universal agreement that women should have equal rights in all areas. Moreover, there is little agreement that women should have equal roles…
Women approve of FGM more than men in Egypt, survey reveals
Even though the country first outlawed FGM in 2008 and further deemed it a felony in 2016, 51 percent of Egyptian women still approve of the procedure. Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is defined as a “partial or total removal of external genitalia, or any other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” by the World Health Organization…