Women in the Middle East Rate Their Lives as Better Than Men's

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July 1 0, 2012

Women and Men Worldwide Equally Likely to Be "Thriving"

Life evaluation ratings among both genders incr ease similarly with GDP by Ly mari Morales and Ky ley McGeeney

This article is the fourth in a series exploring gender inequality worldwide.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Wome n worldwide in 2011 continued to rate their liv es similarly to men. A cross

14 7 co untries and areas, 24% of women rate their lives well enough to be c onsidered "thriving" -- a key

measur e of soc ietal wellbe ing. Women are also as likely as men are to be "struggling" (63%) and "suffering"

(13%).

Gallup classifies respondents as thriv ing, struggling, or suffering acc ording to how they rate their cur rent

and future lives o n a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 1 0, based o n the Cantril Self-Anchoring

Striving Scale, where 0 repre sents the worst possible life and 10 repr esents the best possible life.

Respondents are classified as thriving if they rate their current lives a 7 or higher and their lives in five

years an 8 or higher, and suffer ing if they rate both their current liv es and their liv es in five y ears a 4 or

lower. The remainder are classified as struggling.

The parity in life evaluations among women and men in 20 11 persists despite the gender inequality



women face in the key areas of employment, personal safety , and physical wellbeing. While it is po ssible

that women measure their lives by different standards than men do when rating their lives, the findings

suggest that women exhibit a high leve l of subjective resilience and optimism despite the challenges they

face.

Women's life ev aluatio n ratings mirror me n's on each of the c ompo nents that make up Gallup's "thriv ing"

measure. Women and men worldwide, on average, in 2011 each rated their current lives a 5.4 and their

lives in five y ears a 6.6. These scores have also been remarkably close among women and men each y ear

Gallup has tracked wellbeing worldwide.

Thriv ing globally has not budged even o ne percentage point in recent y ears, exc ept for a decline from

24% to 21% in 200 9 after the global financial crisis. Suffering increased to 13% in 2009 from 9% in 2007

and hasn't changed since. This is true ev en though Gallup has documented sharp shifts in these life

ev aluation measures in co untries facing political or eco nomic turmoil, including Egypt, Tunisia, and

Greece.

Gallup and other researchers such as Angus Deato n, Betsey Stev enson, and Justin Wolfers have found that

people's evaluations of their lives are highly related to GDP per c apita. This is true for both genders.

Women and men rate their liv es b etter, and to a similar degree, acro ss GDP groups, as c lassified by the



World Bank.

Am ericas Lead, Sub-Saharan Afric a Lags

Women and men are the most likely to be thriv ing in the A meric as, each rating their current lives a 6.8

and expecting them to be a 7 .9 in the future. Women are least likely to be thriving in sub-Saharan Africa,

but, he re, optimism abounds as both genders giv e their future liv es amo ng the highest ratings wor ldwide.

Women in the former Sov iet Unio n trail their male c ounterparts the most, while wo men in the Middle East

and North Africa are the most likely to rate their lives better than men do.

Women rate their liv es differ ently than do men in only a few specific c ountr ies. Thriv ing among wo men

trails thriv ing among men by double digits in two co untries: Ukraine and V ietnam. The gaps in these

co untries reflect men rating their lives mo re positive ly in 2011 than in 201 0, while women's life ratings

remained steadier.



Conversely , thriving among women ex ceeds thriving among men by double digits in four co untries:

Qatar, Angola, South Korea, and Iran. In Qatar, Iran, and South Korea, women in recent years have

co nsistently rated their lives more positively than men have. In Ango la, both genders have grown more

positive about their lives in recent y ears, but women more so than men.

In South Korea, women have co nsistently be en more likely than men to be thriving ev ery y ear that Gallup

has survey ed there, even as both genders hav e beco me more positiv e about their lives. South Korean women's positive life ev aluatio ns likely reflec t their country 's high employment rate amo ng women --

ev en though women in South Korea on av erage earn 38% less than men, the largest gender pay gap in the

world.

Denm ark Does Best Overall, Afghanistan Worst

Women and men are most likely to be thriv ing in Denmark, at 7 8% and 7 0%, respectiv ely , resulting in an

eight-percentage-point gender gap in favo r o f women. Women in Afghanistan (2%) are among the least

likely in the world to be thriv ing.





The low percentage o f women who are thriving in Afghanistan marks a sharp decline from 1 5% in 201 0.

This is an exc eption to the pattern seen in most countries, where the trends in thriv ing among women and

men tend to rise and fall together. The sharp dec line in thriving in A fghanistan coincides with higher food

prices and inflation and food shortages triggered by floods in 201 0 in Pakistan, the co untry 's chief food

exporter.



Other countries that saw double-digit declines in thriving among women in 20 11 were El Salvado r (-22),

Bahrain (-15 ), Pakistan (-12), and Ireland (-10), and in each of these cases men also saw declines. In

Zambia (-12), Guatemala (-10), and Paraguay (-10 ), women lost gro und while men remained relative ly

steady . Ghana (+22), Uzbekistan (+22), South Korea (+1 5), and Thailand (+14) saw double-digit increases

in thriving among women in 2011 , accompanied by increases among men.

Implications

Gallup's global analysis rev eals that women worldwide, and in most countries, in 201 1 continued to r ate

their lives similarly to men. Women's parity with men is remarkable considering there are often gender

gaps in the key areas of employment, perso nal safety , and physical wellbeing.

Leaders should be particularly c once rned about women's wellbeing in the countries where women are less

likely to be thriving ov erall, as well as where their wellbeing is deteriorating. It is important to measure

and actively work to improve ho w women are doing overall on these metrics, in addition to how they are

doing compared with men. Examining only the gender gap paints an incomplete picture.

As mo re women hav e mo re opportunitites to get go od jobs, fee l safe, and improv e their physical

wellbeing, they will be better po sitioned to contr ibute e conomically and socially to society , and

positioned for even higher wellbeing. It is also clear that women take into account many factors when

rating their lives -- much of which classic economic data alone cannot capture.

For complete data sets or custom research from the more than 150 countries Gallup continually surv ey s,

please contact [email protected] or call 202.7 15.3030.

Surv ey Methods

Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with 19 1,3 17 adults, aged 15 and older,

co nducted during 2011 in 147 co untries and areas. For results based on the total global sample, one can

say with 95% confidence that the max imum margin of sampling error is less than ±1 percentage point. For

results based on co untry-level samples, the margin of error ranges from a low of ±1.6 perc entage points

to a high of ±7 .3 perc entage points. The margin of error re flects the influence of data weighting. In

addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conduc ting survey s can

introduce error or b ias into the findings of public o pinion polls.

For more c omplete methodology and specific survey dates, please review Gallup's Country Data Set



details.







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Women in the Middle East Rate Their Lives as Better Than Men's