Gender, Aging, and the Evolving Arab Patriarchal Contract

Abstract

Within Arab societies, a strong patriarchal contract has given elderly women a claim to economic resources, power within the household and community, and access to the public sphere. But in most communities, few alternatives to the patriarchal contract exist, placing women in a vulnerable situation. In the absence of strong state-sponsored social safety nets, elderly women without male kin or whose kin do not or cannot fulfill this contract are vulnerable to poverty and neglect. Using secondary data sources and previous studies, I describe the factors contributing to the patriarchal contract in the Arab world and the general conditions facing the elderly. Drawing on earlier field work, I then discuss in more detail how the Palestinian elderly are faring, particularly in light of recent Israeli policies. Finally, I argue that Arab cultures and economies are in transition, which raises questions about how future cohorts of elderly women will fare.

Keywords:

• Arab
• elderly
• gender
• Palestinian
• patriarchal contract

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Funding for this research was provided by the Economic Research forum for the Arab countries, Iran and Turkey (ERS); the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego; the International Christian Committee in Jerusalem; and the University of Michigan Research Development Fund. I wish to thank guest editor Agneta Stark for encouraging me to write this paper. The comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers, Raj Mankad, Polly Maurice, and Diana Strassmann were also most appreciated.

Notes

JEL Codes: I31, J1, Z13

The literature is not consistent in defining when someone becomes “elderly.” While I generally use data for those over 60, in some places I report data for those over 65, for comparability with other studies.

As documented by the United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO 2002) and the World Bank (2004b), the imposition of a range of closures, curfews, and travel restrictions on the Palestinian population, has led to massive drops in per capita GDP and increases in poverty.

A notion put forth by Nancy Chodorow (1978). See Julie Nelson (1996) for a discussion of this idea in the context of Western economic theory.

The term modernity has been problematized by various authors. It is used here to define the transition from a land-based to a wage-labor-based economy, rather than to suggest the notion of a superior economic system.

Europe also provided considerable migration options for young men, particularly from Algeria and Morocco (World Bank 2004d).

The World Bank (2004d) suggests that as much as 10 and 15 percent of the Egyptian and Yemeni labor forces respectively worked abroad during the 1980s.

Even now that a limited state apparatus has been put in place, because of continued violence and ongoing occupation by the Israeli military, its effectiveness has been extremely limited.

Research suggests women should live on average five years longer than men (United Nations Development Program 1996: 74). The average woman in the region lives three to four years longer than the average man, suggesting a slight, but not an extreme, gender bias. Considerable variation, though, exists across countries, and higher income does not necessarily lead to women's life expectancy improving relative to men's. For example, in relative terms, Syria, a middle-income country, performed better than Bahrain.

Surveys of the United Arab Emirates (Stephen Margolis and Richard Reed 2001) and Egypt (World Bank 2004a), though, find that the number of elderly men is greater than the number of women. Explanations for this include high maternal mortality rates for older generations and the possibility that older women may be undercounted in some surveys.

As in other parts of the world, Arab women who enter the paid labor market are likely to face discrimination and occupational segregation (Richard Anker 1998; Jennifer Olmsted 2001).

One can in fact make the argument that increases in female labor force participation may be a sign of increased economic vulnerability.

As illustrated in Tables 1 and 2, it should be noted that GDP per capita varies considerably in the region. Generally poverty rates are higher in countries with lower levels of national income.

More generally, whereas there appears to be a consensus that poverty is extremely feminized in the industrial North, evidence from the South is less compelling, in part because female headship rates remain low. Agnes Quisumbing, Lawrence Haddad, and Christine Pena (2001), for instance, do not find significantly different poverty rates among households with a greater percentage of females or those headed by females. See Nilifur Cagatay (1998) for an excellent discussion of the links between gender and poverty.

Large Palestinian populations also live in Jordan, Lebanon, as well as a number of other countries.

I collected the data in the Bethlehem area in 1991. Following the model of Leslie Kish (1965), a randomized sample of rural and urban households was surveyed. One household member was asked to provide socio-economic information about him/herself and all other household members. See Jennifer Olmsted (1994) for more detail. In order to gauge reliability of the sample, data were compared with a survey encompassing the entire West Bank and Gaza, which was carried out by the Norwegian Fafo Institute for Applied Social Sciences in 1992 (Marianne Heiberg and Geir Ovenson 1993).

Their numbers only included loner households and excluded elderly couples living together.

Some were wage laborers, but most worked in family businesses, particularly in farming or running small shops.

For further discussion of feminist economic methods, see Jennifer Olmsted (1997), as well as other contributions to the special issue of Feminist Economics edited by Michelle Pujol (1997).

In Arab society, parents are known by the name of their first-born son. Women are called Um (mother of) and men Abu (father of), followed by the given name of their first son. This naming is emblematic not only of the patriarchal structure of society, but also of the way in which naming reinforces the fluid, connective notions of self.

Although I never formally interviewed Um Maher, I had many conversations with her while visiting her household first in 1988 – 89 and then again in 1990 – 91.

During the first Intifada, many forms of political activism, including participation in student politics, were considered suspect by the Israeli authorities and punishable by imprisonment.

This was before the Palestinian economy began experiencing unemployment rates has high as 30 percent in the late 1990s. By that time one son had emigrated to the US. As I have since lost touch with the family, I am not sure what employment opportunities the sons who remained in the area currently have.

I was fortunate to have observed this household extensively, as well as interviewing both Um Omar and one of her daughters-in-law.

He was imprisoned after being elected to the student government at his university.

I have argued elsewhere (Tarek Maassarani and Jennifer Olmsted 2004), though, that Israeli occupation does increase women's unpaid work burden.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer C Olmsted

JEL Codes: I31, J1, Z13