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I examine patterns, problems, and prospects of women's employment in MENA, where the regional political economy is changing in the context of the pressures of globalization. The research indicates that a trend in all countries is an increase in the supply of job-seeking women, and a “feminization” of government employment. It is likely that the opening up of economies may subvert some patriarchal aspects of gender relations by increasing women's economic participation in the long run, but the social terms on which this is done are highly problematic in the short run.

We examine the issue of gender power by developing four proxies using data from a field survey conducted in Izmir, Turkey. Four proxies for power include income, absolute and proportional spending, and personal leisure time and all are defined relative to the spouse. We find that women have relative power with respect to monetary measures with a high correlation between intra-family status and socio-economic stratum. In addition we find evidence that working women bear a heavy home work burden. However, we also find that there is a strong socio-economic component to this result, where the lower the socio-economic stratum, the smaller are the number of leisure hours.

“Post-Fordist” organization of production brings about new paradigms and restructuring in the labor markets. This paper studies informal labor markets and the role of women in post-Fordist production in Turkey. The aim of the paper is to discuss the hypothesis that the female role in an Islamic society, as modeled in accordance with political Islam, is quite compatible with the differentiated labor market structure in the post-Fordist production organization.

In this paper I examine differences in labor patterns in the Bethlehem area by sex. I find that there is considerable occupational segregation, as well as a wage gap between men and women, particularly among less educated women. This wage gap is accentuated by men's and women's differential opportunities vis à vis the Israeli economy. Men working in the Israeli sector, primarily in the construction sector, receive a wage premium, while women, who work primarily as subcontractors to Israeli textile and garment producers, do not and are among the lowest paid workers in the economy.

This paper analyzes the patterns of employment in Turkey's banking sector during the post-1980 era from the perspective of occupational sex segregation. Occupational status of women and men in the banking sector is studied using sample survey data collected from 16 private banks. Indices for occupational segregation are computed for each bank as well as for the sector. Although the sampled banks are not homogenous in terms of the patterns of segregation, there is evidence of weak segregation. The findings indicate that many banking sector employees, especially females, are overqualified for their positions. The disproportionate representation of occupational categories by education and sex highlights the need for caution in evaluating the recent feminization of the banking sector as a definitely positive trend.

I advocate the use of the family of Generalized Entropy measures for the analysis of short and long run earnings inequality between men and women and among women in MENA. In order to lend credibility to the analysis of earnings inequality by sex, long-run measures of earnings inequality free of transitory components and decomposable by specific characteristics, must be used. Utilizing such techniques in MENA is particularly important since the region is undergoing rapid changes in women's labor force participation rates. A priority of policy makers should be the collection of good longitudinal data that can address these questions.