Women as agents of change in the MENA region?

This data story looks at the economic empowerment of women over the past decade and a half across selected Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Liban, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine*, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates). It sets out a few stylised facts on how education, labour markets, laws, and public opinion shape women’s opportunities**. It also looks at how economic realities interact with cultural norms and legal structures across the region. Most importantly, it asks a central question: are women agents of change in their own economic and political trajectories, and how is that visible in the data that follows?

This issue goes beyond human rights or social and economic concerns and directly affects the region’s political and security landscape. As women gain greater opportunities to work, earn and participate in public life, they strengthen the resilience of families and communities, which supports broader social stability and – as research has consistently shown – contributes to higher levels of security and peace.

Labour market

Navigating structural constraints

 

Across the MENA region, women’s participation in the labour market remains among the lowest globally.

 

But trajectories of change since 2010 diverge sharply between sub-regions.

 

In the Levant and in conflict-affected states, patterns are particularly volatile. In Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine, conflict and economic collapse have disrupted labour markets and pushed much of women’s work into informal or otherwise precarious employment. Even when headline female labour force participation (LFP) does not decline sharply, it often masks deteriorating job quality, greater instability, and lower earnings.

 

In more stable economies like Jordan, the picture is different: stagnation rather than collapse.

 

The Gulf shows a third pattern. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and, most notably, Saudi Arabia have recorded steep increases in women’s participation driven by diversification, nationalisation, and reform agendas. Yet even with these gains, participation remains below global trends.

 

Across all these contexts, women’s agency is visible in how they enter or remain in the labour force even when conditions worsen. Yet deep structural barriers continue to constrain what women’s agency can achieve.

 

The LFP gender gap has narrowed meaningfully only in a handful of countries – Qatar, the UAE, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.

 

And even there it remains well above global averages.

 

Qatar and the UAE recorded the largest declines, dropping from around 44–48 percentage points (p.p.) in 2010–12 to 32–36 p.p. in 2022–24, yet these figures remain far from global norms.

 

Egypt constitutes a more complex case: the gender gap shrank between 2010 and 2017 and then widened again to surpass 2010 levels by 2024. This reversal reflects a contraction in public-sector hiring, which many educated women rely on, alongside job growth concentrated in sectors that tend to exclude women, especially those who are married.

 

A similar pattern, although on a more limited scale, is visible in Morocco and Jordan, where modest early improvements have been partially reversed in recent years.

 

Unemployment data further sharpens these contrasts. In half of the countries covered, the gender unemployment gap exceeds 9 percentage points, compared with a global average below 0.5 p.p.

 

Morocco is an instructive case: despite a relatively low unemployment gender gap (at 2 p.p.), its LFP gender gap remains huge, close to 50 p.p., reflecting extremely high rates of informality (77% in Morocco, 62.5% in Egypt, 44% in Tunisia).

 

Youth unemployment adds another layer of vulnerability: in half of all countries covered, the gender unemployment gap among young people (15–24) is between two and four times higher than among the general population (15+). Unemployment among young women is between 1.7 and nearly five times higher than among the general female population in all the countries covered.

 

In several cases, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, female unemployment actually exceeds female labour force participation – an unusual pattern globally that signals women’s profound difficulty finding jobs even when they do enter the labour force. By contrast, in the smaller Gulf states, especially Qatar, female unemployment is extremely low, reflecting both public-sector employment guarantees for citizens and strong state control over labour markets.

 

These contrasts show that women navigate barriers in every direction, but their ability to change outcomes depends strongly on state reforms and the economy’s capacity to generate jobs. The Gulf illustrates how reforms open space for women’s agency; North Africa and the Levant show the limits of agency when job creation is weak and there are high levels of informality.

 

Legal reforms are uneven. Nearly half the countries still restrict women’s work, from requiring husband’s permission to barring them from certain industries or night shifts.

 

Yet women’s growing presence in the public sphere mirrors ongoing legal shifts: anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws are now in place in most countries , and the Gulf has expanded women’s employment rights. Saudi Arabia’s post-2017 reforms removed male-guardian consent requirements for work and travel and opened most sectors to women. The UAE followed between 2018-2022 with equal-pay legislation, anti-discrimination provisions, stronger maternity and parental leave, and the removal of remaining permission requirements in employment matters.

 

Bahrain and Kuwait adopted anti-discrimination rules and stronger protections against workplace harassment (between 2018-2022). Enforcement gaps remain, but change is underway.

 

Public attitudes are mixed. Across surveyed countries (Lebanon, Tunisia, Palestine and Jordan), majorities support men and women having equal working opportunities, although women are consistently 10-20 points more supportive than men – and in all countries except Tunisia support for equal opportunities declined somewhat between 2010 and 2024. When women cite obstacles, they focus on jobs, wages, childcare, and employer bias, rather than just social rejection, although between 2021 and 2024 social stigma was still cited as the main barrier by between 3% of respondents in Egypt and 24% of respondents in Libya. Together, these patterns underscore that women who want to work are constrained both by structure and culture, with the balance between the two varying across countries.

No consistent data was available for the Gulf countries, but qualitative evidence suggests that while attitudes have improved, cultural norms still lag behind the rapid legal and economic reforms reshaping women’s labour market roles.

Education

Women surge ahead despite legal gaps

If agency is visible anywhere, it is in education. Across the countries covered, young women already outperform young men, including in tertiary education: the combined gross enrolment ratio for women consistently exceeds that of men, often by a wide margin. Women also represent a substantial share of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduates, ranging from 39% in Egypt to 54% in Oman (as of 2024). With the exception of Egypt and Morocco, where the gap is nearly non-existent, women dominate higher education, making persistently low female labour-force participation even more paradoxical.

 

 

Most countries at least partially enshrine the right to education without discrimination – either through statutory provisions or constitutional clauses – and in half, constitutions explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sex or gender.

 

However, very few legal frameworks explicitly guarantee equal access to tertiary education.

 

And none protect the right of pregnant or parenting girls to continue their studies.

 

 

Yet despite these gaps, women keep advancing. They are reshaping the education landscape across the region through sheer numbers.

Entrepreneurship

Agency under constraint

High unemployment pushes many women toward entrepreneurship. Across the wider MENA region, startup intentions are high: 28.5% of women say they want to start a business (as of 2024 over 50% in Tunisia, Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait), one of the highest figures globally. But aspiration does not easily translate into ownership. In the countries covered, women account for no more than 26% of business owners, a figure that has barely shifted in a decade (globally, about one in three small, medium, and large enterprises is owned by a woman). In Egypt, the share even fell, from 23% in 2014 to 15% in 2020.

From a legal standpoint, women face no explicit statutory barriers to registering a business or signing contracts in any of the countries examined. However, significant structural barriers undermine their ability to turn entrepreneurial intentions into viable and sustainable businesses. One of the most consequential is women’s limited ownership of land and property – even though legally, in all countries covered women and men have equal ownership rights to immovable property – which restricts their ability to invest, secure collateral, or access credit. As a recent (2023) ESCWA review notes, although reforms have been attempted in countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Palestine, women’s ownership of productive assets remains extremely low.

A key driver of this pattern is the inheritance framework. In all countries covered without exception, Islamic inheritance law allocates women half the share received by men, and in many contexts, this is further compounded by social expectations that women will relinquish their inheritance rights in favour of male relatives. Together, these norms and legal provisions significantly reduce women’s access to capital, constraining both the scale and sustainability of their entrepreneurial activity.

Public opinion strongly supports maintaining unequal inheritance rights: except in Lebanon, where support is below one-third, over 70% of respondents in all surveyed countries oppose equal inheritance for men and women. Moreover, views have hardened in some places over time. For example, in Jordan the share of people opposing equal inheritance increased by 11 percentage points between 2011 and 2019. Only Egypt and Palestine saw decline in opposition over the same period (–19 p.p. and –7 p.p., respectively).

Access to finance compounds these constraints. According to the Global Findex Database 2025, at 15 percentage points the broader Middle East and North Africa has the world’s largest gender gap in terms of access to financial accounts. More broadly, women face greater challenges in accessing formal financial services, limiting their capacity to obtain start-up capital, build up their businesses, or engage in higher-value activities.

Even so, women adopt alternative strategies. Depending on their country context, education, age, and available resources, some turn to crowdfunding or digital platforms to overcome financing barriers. Others run home-based businesses that rely on social media or e-commerce tools to reach customers. These activities range from digital startups to online sales of traditional goods, such as home-cooked meals marketed through delivery platforms. Women are increasingly using technology as a low-cost entry point into entrepreneurship. Although these strategies are often informal and small-scale, they show how women adapt to structural constraints and create new economic opportunities where formal systems fall short.

Political representation

Where agency meets its hardest limits

 

 

Women’s political representation in the MENA region remains limited. As of 2024, countries in the region hold the second-lowest global share of female members of parliament at around 19% (compared to the global average of 26%), and the lowest share of women in local deliberative bodies at about 20%. Several governments are still almost entirely male, leaving women largely excluded from key decision-making forums.

 

Where progress has been made, it has been driven mainly by policy interventions. The UAE reached 50% female representation after mandating gender parity in its Federal National Council in 2019. Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco have approached the 20–30% range after adopting electoral quotas. Elsewhere, however, representation remains very low. In Lebanon only 6% of MPs are women, and Oman currently has no women in its elected council (although women constitute 21% of the members of the Majlis ad-Dawla, appointed by the Sultan).

 

 

As of 2025, the region has no female Heads of State and no women Speakers of Parliament, although Tunisia’s appointment of Najla Bouden as the first female prime minister in the Arab world in 2021 remains a historic milestone. In some cases, gains have even reversed: Algeria’s share of women in parliament fell from 32% in 2012 to under 8% in 2021 after a one-third seat quota was replaced by a candidate-parity law with no enforcement mechanism.

Public opinion reflects this uneven landscape. In Arab Barometer surveys (2021–2022), roughly three-quarters of respondents said that having women in political leadership would advance women’s rights at least to a moderate extent. Views vary sharply: in Tunisia, 45% said it would do so ‘to a great extent’, compared to only 27% in Palestine. Gender gaps are consistent across the region. Women are more likely than men to view female leadership as impactful, with gaps ranging from 7 percentage points in Iraq to 21 in Kuwait. Except in Iraq, men are more likely to say female leadership makes no difference.

 

Broad biases persist. Between 2017 and 2024, majorities in most surveyed countries agreed that ‘men are better at political leadership than women’. Lebanon was the only exception, with agreement ranging from 33 to 53%. In Tunisia and Morocco, views shifted over time, usually landing near an even split but often leaning towards agreement. In Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya and Egypt, around seven in ten respondents endorsed the statement, with Palestine and Egypt showing a gradual downward trend over time.

As data from 2023/2024 shows, these views show little variation across generations: levels of strong agreement among 18–29 year-olds, 30–49 year-olds, and those over 50 are nearly identical. In countries like Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait , support for male political superiority remains high regardless of age, challenging assumptions that youth are uniformly more progressive.

 

Taken together, these trends show that while women’s political inclusion is slowly expanding, progress remains fragile. Female representation matters for policymaking and for shifting public attitudes, but numbers alone are not enough. In contexts where parliaments have limited influence, increasing the share of women may have little effect unless paired with broader institutional reforms. Sustained progress will depend on state commitment to strengthening women’s political power and building public confidence in women’s leadership.

Conclusions

Across the MENA region, women demonstrate agency in many ways: by pursuing higher education at unprecedented levels, by seeking work even in weak labour markets, by turning to entrepreneurship when jobs are scarce, and by pushing for political presence in systems that remain restrictive. But agency alone cannot overcome structural constraints. Progress accelerates where economic diversification, legal reforms, and institutional openings align with women’s efforts. Where these are absent, women continue to adapt, yet outcomes remain limited.

Evidence also shows that women’s inclusion in the political space has effects that extend beyond representation. Countries with more women in government are more likely to pass reforms that remove gender-based legal barriers, and female leaders help dismantle obstacles to women’s participation in the workforce. Higher levels of women’s political representation correlate strongly with higher scores on the Women, Business and the Law Index, suggesting that women’s presence in decision-making roles contributes directly to legal and economic equality.

Taken together, the data shows that women are not only shaped by their environment, they shape it in return. But the extent of their influence depends on the systems around them.

What should the European Union focus on in this context? Given the clear link between women’s empowerment and broader stability, the EU has a strong interest in sustaining and scaling up efforts in its Southern Neighbourhood and the Gulf. Both the recently launched Pact for the Mediterranean and the 2022 Strategic Partnership with the Gulf stress that empowering women is crucial for the region’s development and security. This aligns with the EU’s wider commitments under the Gender Action Plan III which identifies gender equality as one of the core objectives of EU external action. Together, these frameworks point to a consistent strategic direction: supporting women’s participation in the economy, in public life and in decision-making is not only a normative priority for the EU but also a practical investment in the resilience and stability of its neighbouring regions. Building on these commitments, the EU should prioritise:

• Bridging the education-to-employment gap: expanding existing EU-backed initiatives that improve women’s skills training, job placement, and entrepreneurship support.
• Increasing access to finance and markets: building on existing efforts, the EU can help scale microfinance, credit guarantees and digital platforms targeted at female entrepreneurs.
• Supporting legal and policy reforms: encouraging MENA partners to eliminate laws that restrict women’s economic activity and to enforce anti-discrimination provisions.
• Amplifying women’s voices in governance and peacebuilding: through diplomacy and assistance, the EU can champion the inclusion of women in political dialogue, local governance, and conflict resolution efforts.

 

Notes

* This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.

** Unless indicated otherwise, all polling data comes from the Arab Barometer and economic indicators from the World Bank. Legal data was derived from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) database.