Neopatriarchy, Islam and female labour force participation: A reconsideration

This article reconsiders the cross‐national determinants of female labour force participation in Islamic settings. It explores a neopatriarchal perspective using in dicators of the role of the government and the political role of women. The study shows that government plays a significant role in determining female employment. Islamic ideology as a cultural variable also contributes significantly to the model. Thus, the results indicate that Islamic ideology per se is not the only factor determining female labour force participation; the political atmosphere and economic development also contribute. In main stream sociology, Muslim countries have usually been classified as outliers on gender relations and demographic factors. These countries generally have lower‐than‐average levels of female labour force participation (FLFP) and higher‐than‐average levels of fertility and mortality relative to non‐Muslim nations at the same level of economic development (Weeks, 1988). For example, in 1995, female employment in Islamic countries was 21.7% while other Muslim and non‐Muslim developing countries, it was 38.1% (World Bank World Tables, 1999). The popular press and much of the academic literature interpret Islam as the “secluder” and “excluder” of women which, in turn, inhibits women’s integration into the formal labour force. What is missing from the analysis is the role of the state in those societies as the main employer and investor. In many Islamic societies, the patriarchal system has never been weakened but rather modernised into a system referred to in this study as the neopatriachal state (Moghadam, 1992; Sharabi, 1988). Neopatriarchy will be defined in this article as traditional patriarchy, especially embedded in religion, which gets appropriated by the state to reinforce its rule. In the following section the meaning of each of these factors and how they affect female employment opportunities is explored.