Female employment status: a survey analysis of selected member states of the Arab League

Low female labor force participation is a conspicuous issue in the literature. Based on this information, women’s perspectives of the determinants of female labor force participation in 13 member states of the Arab League in relation to the region’s patriarchal culture and conservative social norms are discussed in this paper. Probit modelling is applied to the sixth wave of the World Values Survey data (2010–2014), in order to examine the relationship between female labor force participation and socio-cultural variables, such as women’s perceptions about the importance of religion, the priority of religion compared with science, the importance of traditions for women, the priority of men concerning the right to a job and the importance of a job for women’s independence, and personal characteristics, such as women’s social class, marital status, number of children, educational level and age. The results indicate that the number of children and the importance given to tradition and religion by women are obstacles to increasing their labor force participation.