Women in OIC Countries: State of Participation, Freedom and Supportive Legislation

In this chapter, we discuss the current state of women’s rights and their socio-economic participation in Muslim majority countries. The chapter also sheds light on effective legislation for promoting gender equality. Secondly, the chapter also presents the Islamic perspective of the gender equality and difference debate. It highlights the Islamic teachings, required social attitudes and the rationale for having certain prescribed differences in assigning roles to both the genders in the Islamic institution of family. We find that there is a difference in relative importance and strength of the institution of family in Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and non-OIC countries. Nevertheless, in some of the conservative OIC countries in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Africa, there are specific attitudes toward socio-economic participation and mobility of women, which require a revisit. We find that the labor force participation and the upward mobility in the corporate hierarchy is lower for women than men; however, it is nonetheless not insignificant.