Cairo, 10 May 2015 Eduard Ponarin (Laboratory for Comparative Research Studies) Training Workshop on "Measurements And Analysis of Opinion Poll Data"

1. Attitudes towards Gender Equality and
Perception of Democracy in the Arab
World
Veronica Kostenko, Pavel Kuzmichev & Eduard Ponarin
Laboratory for Comparative Social Research

2. Puzzle: Gender Attitudes for Different Age
Groups in the Arab World
0,568
0,551
0,573
0,579
0,571
0,579
0,550
0,555
0,560
0,565
0,570
0,575
0,580
0,585
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 and older

3. Research Questions
• How do the attitude towards gender
equality vary across countries in the Arab
World?
• Does this trend follow the pattern of
democracy support?
• Do Arab countries follow the global trend
of liberalization or do they become more
religious and traditional?

4. Why Are Gender Attitudes Important?
• Gender attitudes are very strong predictors of post-
materialist values (Norris & Inglehart, Rising Tide,
2003)
• Gender Equality Index is highly and positively
correlated with support of democracy in most
countries in the world (Abdel-Latif, Rizzo, 2007,
McKinnon, 2007)
• Change in women’s attitudes towards their role and
position in society leads to significant social
transformations (Moghadam, Modernizing Women in
the Middle East, 2003)

5. Theoretical Framework
• Revised modernization theory (Inglehart, Welzel) –
general framework
• Theory of stability of political attitudes (Newcomb,
Alwin and Cohen) – explanation of age differences
• Clash of civilizations theory - Huntington

6. Previous Research
• Mark Tessler and Amaney Jamal claim that about
80% of the population in the Arab Muslim world
support democracy, but none of these countries
enjoy democratic regimes
• Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel find that in
industrial and agrarian(including Muslim) countries
differences between cohorts in terms of gender
equality are smaller than in postindustrial (i.e.
social change is slower)
• Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris argue that the
Muslim cultural heritage “is one of the strongest
barriers for the rising tide of gender equality”

7. Hypotheses
• Democracy approval correlates positively with
gender equality support
• The elderly are more conservative, younger
generations are more liberal
• Men are more conservative in their gender
attitudes and democratic preferences than women
• More educated people are more liberal than those
who lack formal education at all or received school
education only
• Degree of religiosity correlates negatively with
gender equality and democracy support

8. Data and Methods (1)
• 1st wave of Arab Barometer Survey (released in
2009)
• 7 countries:
• - Algeria
• - Kuwait
• - Morocco
• - Lebanon
• - Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip)
• - Jordan
• - Yemen

9. Data and Methods (2)
Index of gender attitudes was created of the
following questions (0 – conservative, 1 - liberal)
• A woman can be a president or prime minister of a Muslim
country
• A married woman can work outside the home if she wishes
• On the whole, men make better political leaders than women
do
• University education is more important for a boy that for a girl
• Men and women should have equal job opportunities
• Men and women should receive equal wages and salaries
• A woman can travel abroad by herself if she wishes

10. Data and Methods (3)
Democracy Support Index
• In a democracy, the economy runs badly
(reverse)
• Democracies are indecisive and have too
much quibbling (reverse)
• Democracies are not good at maintaining
order (reverse)
• Democracy may have its problems but is
better than any other form of government

11. Data and Methods (4)
• Multiple Imputation (Amelia package in R
software)
8122 cases, 6108 fully valid cases for the set of
our variables of interest
• Countries are taken as second level variables
in the imputation process

12. Mean Gender Equality Index in 7
Countries
0,44
0,53 0,53 0,54
0,59 0,61
0,72
0,40
0,45
0,50
0,55
0,60
0,65
0,70
0,75
Yemen Algeria Jordan Palestine Kuwait Morocco Lebanon

13. Gender Equality Index for Women and
Men
0,35
0,40
0,45
0,50
0,55
0,60
0,65
0,70
0,75
Yemen Jordan
Palestine Algeria
Kuwait
Morocco
Lebanon
0,41
0,48 0,49
0,46
0,54
0,54
0,68
0,48
0,58 0,59 0,62 0,64 0,67
0,77
Male Female

14. Mean for Democracy Support Index
0,55 0,55
0,57
0,58
0,60
0,65
0,74
0,50
0,55
0,60
0,65
0,70
0,75
Yemen Palestine Algeria Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Morocco

15. Democracy Support Index for Women
and Men
Women
Men
,50
,55
,60
,65
,70
,75
Palestine Yemen Algeria Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Morocco
0,55 0,55 0,56 0,57
0,60
0,65
0,740,55 0,57 0,56
0,59
0,62
0,66
0,75
Women
Men

16. Gender Attitudes for Different Age Groups in the
Arab World
0,568
0,551
0,573
0,579
0,571
0,579
0,550
0,555
0,560
0,565
0,570
0,575
0,580
0,585
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 and older

17. Democracy Support for Different Age Groups in the
Arab World
0,603
0,594
0,615
0,616
0,637
0,624
0,590
0,595
0,600
0,605
0,610
0,615
0,620
0,625
0,630
0,635
0,640
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 and older

18. Attitude towards Gender Equality for Various Age
Groups Controlled for Education
0,45
0,50
0,55
0,60
0,65
0,70
0,75
0,80
0,85
Illiterate Primary Secondary 2-year College BA MA or Higher
GenderEqualityIndex
Level of Education
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+

19. Attitudes towards Democracy controlled
for Age and Education
0,55
0,6
0,65
0,7
0,75
0,8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
DemocracySupportIndex
Level of education (illiterate – 1; tertiary - 6)
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+

20. OLS, GEI – dependent variable; R2
adj = 26.7
Independent Beta t Significance
Gender (female) 0,12 29,97 ***
Democracy index 0,12 12,03 ***
Education - Primary 0,05 7,01 ***
Education - Secondary 0,08 9,51 ***
Education - 2-year college 0,10 10,64 ***
Education - BA 0,12 13,64 ***
Education - MA or higher 0,14 11,08 ***
Lebanon 0,16 22,28 ***
Morocco 0,06 8,20 ***
Kuwait 0,07 7,89 ***
Palestine 0,01 1,66 .
Algeria -0,02 -2,30 *
Yemen -0,09 -11,93 ***
Jordan - baseline
Age 18-24 -0,04 -3,6 ***
Age 25-34 -0,05 -4,44 ***
Age 35-44 -0,03 -2,83 **
Age 45-54 -0,03 -2,43 *
Age 55-64 -0,01 -0,63
Quran_read often -0,05 -8,86 ***
Quran_read sometimes -0,03 -5,19 ***

21. OLS Results (Gender Equality Index)
• The most liberal country is Lebanon, the most conservative is
Yemen
• Men are more conservative than women
• Those people who pray every day are the most conservative
in gender attitudes, those who do not pray at all are the most
liberal
• The most educated people are the most liberal
• People aged 65+ form the most liberal age group in the
Middle East. People from 55 to 75 are also liberal. The most
conservative age group are people of 25-34 years old.

22. Cluster Analysis

23. Poisson Regression Modeling
• Cluster A (N=1384) – Upper right
Female. Age: older than 45, few 25-34, education: MA and higher.
Country: Lebanon, Morocco
• Cluster B (N=1084) – Lower right
Female. Age: non sig. Education: few MA. Country: Jordan, not
Morocco, Lebanon, Yemen.
• Cluster C (N=2615) - Center
Male. Age: more 25-35. Education: few MA. Country: Jordan, not
Morocco, Lebanon, Yemen
• Cluster D (N=1468) – Upper left
Male. Age: 18-34, few 45-65. Education: more illiterate, few BA and MA.
Country: few Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Algeria.
• Cluster E (N=1571) – Lower left
Male. Age: 18-34, few 55-65+. Education: mostly secondary and 2-year
college, much fewer MA. Country: not Morocco, Kuwait, definitely
not Lebanon.

24. Poisson Model – Interactive effects
Interactive effects – women are more
progressive in more developed countries and
more conservative in less developed societies.
• Cluster A: fewer women in Yemen.
• Cluster B, C, D, E: fewer women in Jordan,
more women in Yemen.
• Cluster D, E: more men in Kuwait.

25. Possible Explanations
• The elderly formed their attitudes during the anti-
colonial struggle (1950-1960s) which was
predominantly secular, the ideologies of pan-Arabism
and nationalism were stronger than the religious
ideology
• The collapse of the USSR led to re-evaluation of
values in its zone of influence, resulting in more
conservative attitudes
• The impressionable years of the group born around
1980 were marked by the 9/11

26. Major Findings (1)
• Modernization in the Middle East is going on as
people are getting more educated, urbanized etc. In
every age group taken separately educated people
are more liberal in terms of gender equality support
that those who received less formal education
• At the same time, there is some archaization in these
societies as younger generations are far more
conservative in their gender attitudes than the
elderly in the Arab East

27. Major Findings (2)
• Democracy and gender equality support correlate at a
very low level (0.19) in the Arab world, in some
countries the correlation is positive, in others –
negative.
• Democracy is supported by the least and the most
educated, those who are in the middle are less
democratic.
• 80% of democracy support turns in fact in 17% of those
who understand democracy in the same sense as in the
Western world (liberal democracy, human rights,
emancipative values)
• Perhaps democracy, unlike gender attitude, is a fuzzy
concept in the Arab world

28. Thanks for your attention!