Gender in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

This paper studies whether commuting barriers constrain women’s labor supply in urban Pakistan. This study randomized offers of gender-segregated or mixed-gender commuting services at varying prices. Women-only transport more than doubled job application rates, while mixed-gender transport had minimal effects on men’s and women’s application rates. Women valued the women-only service more than large price discounts for the mixed-gender service. These findings highlight the importance of safety and propriety concerns in women’s labor decisions.

Pakistan faces significant gender gaps in wage employment, entrepreneurship, and access to productive assets. Women in Pakistan also contend with critical issues related to safety, mobility, agency, and restrictive social norms. This report provides an in-depth analysis of these disparities and introduces an evidence-based policy toolkit that prioritizes actionable solutions drawn from global and regional evidence while highlighting areas that require further research. Utilizing extensive microdata from national and regional surveys, it offers a comprehensive 20-year review of trends and insights into women’s work and empowerment across multiple indicators, paving the way for targeted, data-driven policy interventions.

The brief provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal and policy barriers affecting women's economic participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Based on the persistent gender disparities in labor force participation and unemployment rates, the brief leverages insights from the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) dataset to identify key legal constraints, evaluate reform progress, and offer actionable recommendations for policymakers to accelerate gender equality reforms.

In Yemen, women and girls face multiple obstacles that hinder progress toward gender equality and limit their economic participation. The ongoing conflict has devastated the lives, health, and economic prospects of ordinary Yemenis, and deepened vulnerabilities, especially for women and girls. However, global experience has shown that women often take on the role of head of household and actively participate in income-generating activities during times of crisis.

Accompanying Photobook

This note introduces initial findings on the potential of women’s entrepreneurship in cleantech in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. It draws on the limited research available at the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship, and climate tech and uses insights from interviews with ecosystem actors in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia to bring attention to the potential and multiple layers of opportunities offered by women’s entrepreneurship in climate tech.

Female labor force participation in the Mashreq is exceptionally low, particularly among mothers with young children. The second State of the Mashreq Women Report: Who Cares? Care Work and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon examines the potential for care policies to support greater female labor force participation. 

In 2019-2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) introduced a historic package of legal reforms aimed at strengthening women’s economic participation, in line with its national policy commitment to gender balance. The reforms signified a major milestone for the region, introducing paid parental leave in the private sector for the first time in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), enabling women to choose where to live and to travel outside the home and internationally in the same way as men.