Attitudes Towards Gender Equality And Perception Of Democracy In The Arab World

Veronica Kostenko (), Pavel Kuzmichev () and Eduard Ponarin ()
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Pavel Kuzmichev: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Eduard Ponarin: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: This paper analyzes 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 used cluster analysis and negative binomial regression modeling to show that, unlike in most countries of the world, the correlation between support of democracy and gender equality is very low in 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 are the most patriarchal in their gender attitudes. Controlling for age, education still has a positive effect on gender equality attitudes. Nevertheless, this phenomenon probably means that there are two simultaneous processes going on in the Middle East. On the one hand, people are becoming more educated, urbanized etc., which means the continuation of modernization. On the other hand, we observed a certain retrogression of social values.

Keywords: modernization; Arab Barometer; democracy; gender equality; patriarchal values; Islam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-dem, nep-hme, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in WP BRP Series: Sociology / SOC, August 2014, pages 1-23

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