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Kin-Based Values and Attitudes Toward Gender Equality in Morocco and Egypt

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Empowering Women after the Arab Spring

Part of the book series: Comparative Feminist Studies ((CFS))

Abstract

Over half a century ago, in attempts to improve women’s status in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt, long processes of amending family law were initiated. These processes led to family laws reforms in all three countries, most recently in Egypt and Morocco. Despite reforms in Morocco and Egypt, myriad obstacles remain to women’s rights, and to the improvement in women’s status, including poverty and literacy levels, access to education, as well as patriarchal culture and the judicial system. Using the 4th and 5th World Values Surveys conducted in Egypt and Morocco, this chapter offers a preliminary individual-level analysis of the role of patriarchal kin-based values on attitudes toward gender equality.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University Abu Dhabi, New York, NY, USA

    Rahma Abdulkadir

  2. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Gail Buttorff

Authors
  1. Rahma Abdulkadir
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  2. Gail Buttorff
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

    Marwa Shalaby

  2. Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Valentine M. Moghadam

Appendix: Table A.1. Concepts and variables (Chap. 5, Abdulkadir and Buttorff)

Appendix: Table A.1. Concepts and variables (Chap. 5, Abdulkadir and Buttorff)

Variable

Question

Scale

Support for gender equality (dependent variables)

• Question D059

• Men make better political leaders than women

• Four possible outcomes: agree strongly, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree

Support for gender equality

• Question D060

• University education more important for a boy

• Four possible outcomes: agree strongly, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree

Support for gender equality

• Question C001

• Men should have more right to a job than women

• Three possible outcomes: Agree, disagree, neither

Patriarchal values

• Question A042

• Important child qualities: obedience

• Binary variable: Not mentioned (0), important (1).

• Question D018

• Child needs a home with father and mother

• Coded 1 if respondent tends to agree and 0 if respondent tends to disagree

• Question D023

• Woman as a single parent

• Three possible responses: disapprove, approve, or depends

• Question D057

• Housewife fulfilling

• Agree strongly, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree

• Question X011

• Number of children

• Nine-point scale: 0 (no children) to 8 (8 or more)

Religiosity

• Question F063

• Importance of God in your life

• Ten-point scale:

not at all important (1) to very important (10)

• Question A006

• Importance of religion in your life

• Four-point scale:

• Very important, rather important, not very important, not at all important

Demographic control variables

• Question X001

• Gender

• 1 if female, 0 if male

• Question X003

• Age

• In years

• Question X025

• Education

• Seven possible outcomes from incomplete elementary education to university degree

• Question X028

• Employment status

• Seven-point scale ranging from employed full-time to unemployed

• Question X007

• Marital status

• Respondents were marked as falling into one of five categories: married, living together as married, divorced, separated, widowed, and single/never married

• Two dummy variables were created indicating whether a respondent was divorced or separated (coded 1; 0, otherwise) and whether a respondent was single or never married (coded 1; 0, otherwise)

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© 2016 The Author(s)

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Abdulkadir, R., Buttorff, G. (2016). Kin-Based Values and Attitudes Toward Gender Equality in Morocco and Egypt. In: Shalaby, M., Moghadam, V. (eds) Empowering Women after the Arab Spring. Comparative Feminist Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55747-6_5

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